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biObjective:/i/bMethylphenidate is effective in reducing the clinical symptoms of patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ORADURsup®/sup-methylphenidate is a new extended-release preparation of methylphenidate. This study aimed at identifying brain regions with activation changes and their correlations with neuropsychological functions after treatment with ORADUR-methylphenidate in children with ADHD.biMethods:/i/bWe recruited drug-naive children with ADHD and age- and sex-matched typically developing (TD) children. They were all scanned with the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the counting Stroop task at baseline, and those with ADHD had the second fMRI assessment after 8-week treatment with ORADUR-methylphenidate. The Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVP) and Conners' Continuous Performance Test (CCPT) were used to assess the attention performance of the ADHD (before and after treatment) and TD groups.biResults:/i/bORADUR-methylphenidate significantly decreased inattention (Cohenid/i = 2.17) and hyperactivity-impulsivity (Cohenid/i = 0.98) symptoms. We found less activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) in the pre-treatment ADHD children than TD children and greater treatment-induced activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC). There was no significant difference between the post-treatment ADHD and TD groups. However, the treatment-related activations in the dACC, rDLPFC, and rIFG were significantly correlated with CCPT and RVP measures.biConclusions:/i/bOur findings indicated that ORADUR-methylphenidate increased brain activations in the dACC, rDLPFC, and rIFG in children with ADHD, associated with improved focused attention, reduced impulsivity, and enhanced inhibition control. Activities of these brain regions might be biomarkers for the treatment effectiveness of methylphenidate for ADHD.biClinical Trials Registration:/i/bClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02450890.

This study compares the antioxidant capacity of non-sterilized lemon product (NLFP) and sterilized lemon fermented product (LFP). After gastrointestinal simulation reaction, the antioxidant capacity decreased by 50% in lemon juice (LJ), 30%–40% in NLFP, and 40% in LFP respectively. For the bioactive ingredients, sterilized LFP had a polyphenol of 25.8 mg GAE/mL, ascorbic acid of 55.2 mg/mL, and flavonoids of 75.2 mg/L, which were higher than LJ. NLFP and LFP effectively increased the activity of Glutathione Peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and mitochondrial membrane potential, reduced the reactive oxygen species (ROS) content. The results in this study indicate that LJ with lactic acid fermentation can increase biologically active ingredients and antioxidant capacity which is important for future development.

The byproducts of lemon juice have always constituted an environmental issue. In this study, the byproducts extracted to lemon water vapor extract (LWAE) by distilled, which was added to lemon fermented products (LFP) to evaluate its effect on its quality and bioactivity. Based on the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry results, the main component of the LWAE was D-limonene (>41%). After added 5% LWAE the amount of D-limonene in non-sterilized lemon fermented product (NLFP) increased from 10.1% to 20.9%, while that in LFP increase from 10.5% to 19.9%. Besides, anti-browning test results showed that LWAE could delay browning. This study demonstrated that LWAE improved the antioxidant capacity, limonene content, anti-browning ability, and bioactive ingredients in a gastrointestinal simulation. These results may serve as the principal basis for byproduct reuse and improvement of product quality.

Whether aberrant language-related lateralization can be improved after antipsychotic treatment in drug-free patients with first-episode psychosis or ultra-high risk state is little known. We aimed to investigate the improvement in lateralization of semantic processing after antipsychotic treatment and associated clinical and cognitive changes. Twenty-one drug-free patients with first-episode psychosis or ultra-high risk state underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging with a semantic task, neuropsychological testing, and clinical assessments with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale before and after 6 weeks of aripiprazole treatment. A lateralization index of the region of interest, i.e., inferior frontal gyrus, was calculated and correlated with the behavioral indices of the semantic task, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale scores, and language-related neuropsychological test scores. After treatment, the lateralization index of the inferior frontal gyrus was significantly increased, which was related to reduced activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus. The increase in the lateralization index was significantly associated with the increase in verbal fluency score. A higher baseline accuracy of the semantic task was associated with a higher post-treatment lateralization index of the inferior frontal gyrus and greater improvement of the total score and positive subscore of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Our findings indicated aripiprazole treatment significantly increased semantic processing-related lateralization in the inferior frontal gyrus in drug-free patients with first-episode psychosis or ultra-high risk state. A higher baseline accuracy might predict a higher post-treatment lateralization index and greater symptom improvement.

Computer-aided synthesis planning (CASP) has been helping chemists to synthesize novel molecules at an accelerated pace. The recent integration of deep learning with CASP has opened up new avenues for digitizing and exploring the vastly unknown chemical space, and has led to high expectations for fully automated synthesis plannings using machine-discovered novel reactions in the "future". Despite many progresses in the past few years, most deep-learning methods only focus on improving few aspects of CASP (e.g., top-k accuracy). In this work, we target specifically the efficiency of reaction space exploration and its impact on CASP. We propose NeuralTPL, a template-oriented generative approach, that performs impressively across a range of evaluation metrics including chemical validity, diversity, and novelty for various tasks in CASP. In addition, our Transformer-based model bears the potential to learn the core reaction transformation as it can efficiently explore the reaction space. We then perform several experiments and conduct a thorough analysis regarding the three metrics and demonstrate its chemical value for improving the existing deep-learning-driven CASP algorithms.

Cisplatin is a widely used standard chemotherapy for various cancers. However, cisplatin treatment is associated with severe ototoxicity. Fucoidan is a complex sulfated polysaccharide mainly derived from brown seaweeds, and it shows multiple bioactivities such as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antioxidant activities. Despite evidence of the antioxidant effects of fucoidan, research on its otoprotective effects remains limited. Therefore, the present study investigated the otoprotective effects of fucoidan in vitro using the mouse cochlear cell line UB/OC-2 to develop new strategies to attenuate cisplatin-induced ototoxicity. We quantified the cell membrane potential and analyzed regulators and cascade proteins in the apoptotic pathway. Mouse cochlear UB/OC-2 cells were pre-treated with fucoidan before cisplatin exposure. The effects on cochlear hair cell viability, mitochondrial function, and apoptosis-related proteins were determined via flow cytometry, Western blot analysis, and fluorescence staining. Fucoidan treatment reduced cisplatin-induced intracellular reactive oxygen species production, stabilized mitochondrial membrane potential, inhibited mitochondrial dysfunction, and successfully protected hair cells from apoptosis. Furthermore, fucoidan exerted antioxidant effects against oxidative stress by regulating the Nrf2 pathway. Therefore, we suggest that fucoidan may represent a potential therapeutic agent for developing a new otoprotective strategy.

This study aimed to further evaluate the benefit of topical hemostasis agents in tonsillectomy. Towards this goal, we compared the clinical effects of topical application between hydrogen peroxide and adrenaline in tonsillectomy. Overall, 60 patients (120 tonsils) were prospectively enrolled for tonsillectomy between February 2018 and December 2020. The patients were randomly assigned to either the hydrogen peroxide or adrenaline group. Then, tonsillectomy was performed using hydrogen peroxide as a hemostatic agent on the assigned side, while adrenaline was applied to the other side. All procedures were performed by a surgeon blinded to the randomization. Outcome measurements of operation time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative pain, and hemorrhage events were analyzed.The intraoperative blood loss was significantly lower in the hydrogen peroxide group than in the adrenaline group (9.99 ± 4.51 ml vs 13.87 ± 6.32 ml, p = 0.0). The median operation time was also significantly lower in the hydrogen peroxide group (8.02 ± 3.59 min vs 9.22 ± 3.88 min, p = 0.019). Meanwhile, the visual analogue scale (VAS) scores were significantly higher in the hydrogen peroxide group (4.98 ± 1.94 vs 4.27 ± 1.97, p = 0.001). The topical application of hydrogen peroxide as a hemostatic agent effectively decreases the operation time and intraoperative blood loss. Thus, hydrogen peroxide can be used as a routine hemostatic agent for bleeding control in tonsillectomy.