A small private online course (SPOC) supports blended learning on a small scale, enabling students to have a more comprehensive and deeper learning experience. It also provides instructors with a flexible and feasible model to better understand the students’ learning needs and to supervise students’ learning behaviors. In this study, we adopted SPOC flipped classroom blended teaching in the physiology course for clinical undergraduate students of Kunming Medical University. Compared with the control group [lecture-based learning (LBL)], the SPOC flipped classroom method significantly increased the scores of students in the preclass test (65.13 ± 12.45 vs. 53.46 ± 8.09, SPOC vs. LBL) and postclass test (80.43 ± 14.29 vs. 69.01 ± 12.81, SPOC vs. LBL), which is induced by students’ increased interest in self-learning. More importantly, the significant difference between the preclass scores of the two groups suggested that the video lecture-based preview is more effective than the textbook-based preview. The study indicated that the SPOC flipped classroom was effective in enhancing the examination scores of students, reflecting an improved learning efficiency and a deeper understanding of the knowledge. In summary, the flipped classroom based on SPOC improves learning outcomes compared with LBL and has a wide application in the learning of basic medical courses.

It has been reported that galanin and its receptors might be involved in the modulation and transmission of nociception in the central nervous system. Our previous research has also demonstrated that galanin induces antinociception in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) of intact rats. However, the interaction between galanin and its receptors in the NAc and the underlying mechanism of suppressing pain transmission remain unclear. The present study seeks to determine the antinociception induced by galanin receptor (GalR)-1 stimulation in the NAc of rats with neuropathic pain. The left sciatic nerve of rats was ligated to mimic a neuropathic pain model. Western blots showed that the expression of GalR1 was significantly upregulated in the NAc of rats with neuropathic pain. Intra-NAc injection of GalR1 agonist M617 induced a dose-dependent increase in hindpaw withdrawal latency (HWL) to noxious thermal and mechanical stimulations in rats with neuropathic pain. Also, the effect of M617 was attenuated by M35, a GalR1/2 antagonist; at the same time, M35 reduced the galanin-induced antinociception, suggesting that GalR1 mediates antinociception induced by galanin in the NAc of rats with neuropathic pain. Furthermore, we found that M617-induced antinociception in rats with neuropathic pain was stronger than the antinociception in intact rats. We also found that injections of M617 and galanin each induced significant increases in HWL, but the galanin-induced antinociception was stronger than that of M617. All these results suggest that GalR1 plays an important role in antinociception and that other GalRs also are involved in pain modulation induced by galanin in the NAc of rats with neuropathic pain.

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