Background: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been employed for motor function rehabilitation for stroke patients, but its effects on post-stroke cognitive impairment (PSCI) remains controversial. Objective: To identify the effects of rTMS intervention on PSCI patients and its potential neural correlates to behavioral improvements. Methods: We recruited 34 PSCI patients for 20 sessions of 10 Hz rTMS or nostim control treatments over the left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Cognitive function was evaluated with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale, Victoria Stroop Test, Rivermead Behavior Memory Test, and Activities of Daily Living (ADL) assessed with the Modified Barthel Index. 14 patients received functional MRI scan, a useful non-invasive technique of determining how structurally segregated and functionally specialized brain areas were interconnected, which was reflected by blood oxygenation level-dependent signals. The amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and functional connectivity (FC) were applied as the analytical approaches, which were used to measure the resting-state brain activity and functional connection. Results: rTMS improved cognitive functions and ADLs for PSCI patients relative to patients who received no-stim control treatment. The cognitive improvements correlated to increased ALFF of the left medial prefrontal cortex, and increased FC of right medial prefrontal cortex and right ventral anterior cingulate cortex. Conclusion: 10 Hz rTMS at DLPFC could improve cognitive function and quality of life for PSCI patients, which is associated with an altered frontal cortical activity.

According to the results of this meta-analysis, RPD is as safe and efficient as OPD and is even favourable in terms of margin-negative resection, overall complication and wound infection rates and length of hospital stay. Given that there have not yet been any high-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the evidence is still limited. Additional prospective, multi-centre RCTs are needed to further define the role of the robotic technique in PD.

CP maintains pancreatic endocrine and exocrine function better than DP and PD, but is associated with a higher PF rate.

Visual working memory (VWM) adopts a specific manner of object-based encoding (OBE) to extract perceptual information: Whenever one feature-dimension is selected for entry into VWM, the others are also extracted. Currently most studies revealing OBE probed an ‘irrelevant-change distracting effect’, where changes of irrelevant-features dramatically affected the performance of the target feature. However, the existence of irrelevant-feature change may affect participants’ processing manner, leading to a false-positive result. The current study conducted a strict examination of OBE in VWM, by probing whether irrelevant-features guided the deployment of attention in visual search. The participants memorized an object’s colour yet ignored shape and concurrently performed a visual-search task. They searched for a target line among distractor lines, each embedded within a different object. One object in the search display could match the shape, colour, or both dimensions of the memory item, but this object never contained the target line. Relative to a neutral baseline, where there was no match between the memory and search displays, search time was significantly prolonged in all match conditions, regardless of whether the memory item was displayed for 100 or 1000 ms. These results suggest that task-irrelevant shape was extracted into VWM, supporting OBE in VWM.

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays a critical role in the process of cancer invasion and metastasis. The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway is known as a stimulative factor, which may trigger EMT and metastasis of cancer cells. In addition, several microRNAs (miRNAs) have been proven to regulate the EMT process. Recent research revealed that miR‑148a is downregulated in pancreatic cancer. However, the definite role of miR-148a in EMT and invasion of pancreatic cancer is still unknown. The present study attempted to demonstrate the underlying mechanism of miR-148a in the regulation of EMT and invasion of pancreatic cancer cells. Our data revealed that the expression of miR-148a was markedly downregulated in human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cell lines and tissues. In addition, the downregulation of miR-148a was associated with poor prognosis and EMT phenotype. Furthermore, restoration of miR-148a expression inhibited the EMT process, as well as the migration and invasion of BxPC-3 pancreatic cancer cells. Wnt10b, a promoting molecule of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, was demonstrated by dual‑luciferase reporter assay to be a direct target of miR‑148a. Subsequently, we found that miR‑148a negatively regulated the protein expression of β-catenin, cyclin D1 and MMP-9, which were important components of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. In conclusion, these findings revealed that miR-148a suppresses EMT and invasion of pancreatic cancer cells by targeting Wnt10b and inhibiting the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, and thus, miR-148a may serve as a novel therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer.

LLH is a safe and effective treatment for selected patients with hepatolithiasis, with an advantage over OLH in the field of intraoperative blood loss, intraoperative transfusion, overall complication and postoperative recovery.

This paper describes and analyses the phenomenon of consonant cluster simplification in the English of two native Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. We show that this process is systematic in that it targets the alveolar plosives and removes them when they are members of a coda consonant cluster in spite of the fact that the details of the simplification may vary from subject to subject. We compare this process to a seemingly similar cluster simplification in native varieties of English and show that they differ in two key respects. Our study provides evidence of a systematic morphophonemic alternation in the English of L1 Cantonese speakers, confirming the observation in a number of sociolinguistic studies that this process is a linguistic feature of the English of L1 Cantonese speakers.

In close agreement with visible germination, orthodox seeds lose desiccation tolerance (DT). This trait can be regained under osmotic stress, but the mechanisms are poorly understood. In this study, germinating seeds of Caragana korshinskii Kom. were investigated, focusing on the potential modulating roles of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the re-establishment of DT. Germinating seeds with 2 mm long radicles can be rendered tolerant to desiccation by incubation in a polyethylene glycol (PEG) solution (-1.7 MPa). Upon PEG incubation, ROS accumulation was detected in the radicles tip by nitroblue tetrazolium chloride staining and further confirmed by confocal microscopy. The PEG-induced re-establishment of DT was repressed when ROS scavengers were added to the PEG solution. Moreover, ROS act downstream of abscisic acid (ABA) to modulate PEG-mediated re-establishment of DT and serve as a new inducer to re-establish DT. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that re-establishment of DT by ROS involves the up-regulation of key genes in the phenylpropanoid-flavonoid pathway, and total flavonoid content and key enzyme activity increased after ROS treatment. Furthermore, DT was repressed by an inhibitor of phenylalanine ammonia lyase. Our data suggest that ROS play a key role in the re-establishment of DT by regulating stress-related genes and the phenylpropanoid-flavonoid pathway.