Background: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, Hubei province, has led to the quarantine of many residents in their homes, in order to mitigate its spread. Some of these people developed mental health problems, and many solutions have been put in place to address the mental health issues of patients and health professionals affected by the disease. However, not much attention has been given to students, particularly those from medical school. The present study aims to conduct an online survey to investigate the mental health status of students from a medical college in Hubei province. Materials and Methods: The WeChat-based survey program Questionnaire Star, which contained questions from Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), was utilized for the present study. Results: A total of 217 students participated in the survey. Among these students, 127 were female and 90 were male. Furthermore, 77 students (35.5%) who participated in the survey were in a state of depression, and 48 (22.1%) were in a state of anxiety. The majority of students who were in depressed (n=75) or anxiety (n=46) states had mild or moderate states. There were no significant differences in students in terms of gender, geographical location, and grade, for the prevalence of depression and anxiety. Conclusion: The present study implies that universities need to take measures to prevent, identify, and deal with mental health problems among students during large-scale stressors.

The key components of insight include breaking mental sets and forming the novel, task-related associations. The majority of researchers have agreed that the anterior cingulate cortex may mediate processes of breaking one’s mental set, while the exact neural correlates of forming novel associations are still debatable. In the present study, we used a paradigm of answer selection to explore brain activations of insight by using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging during solving Chinese ‘chengyu’ (in Chinese pinyin) riddles. Based on the participant’s choice, the trials were classified into the insight and non-insight conditions. Both stimulus-locked and response-locked analyses are conducted to detect the neural activity corresponding to the early and late periods of insight solution, respectively. Our data indicate that the early period of insight solution shows more activation in the middle temporal gyrus, the middle frontal gyrus and the anterior cingulate cortex. These activities might be associated to the extensive semantic processing, as well as detecting and resolving cognitive conflicts. In contrast, the late period of insight solution produced increased activities in the hippocampus and the amygdala, possibly reflecting the forming of novel association and the concomitant “Aha” feeling. Our study supports the key role of hippocampus in forming novel associations, and indicates a dynamic neural network during insight solution.

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Objective:To investigate the cerebral gray matter volume alterations in unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients within the acute period by the voxel-based morphometry method, and to determine if hearing impairment is associated with regional gray matter alterations in unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients.Study Design:Prospective case study.Setting:Tertiary class A teaching hospital.Patients:Thirty-nine patients with left-side unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss and 47 patients with right-side unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss.Intervention:Diagnostic.Main Outcome Measure:To compare the regional gray matter of unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients and healthy control participants.Results:Compared with control groups, patients with left side unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss had significant gray matter reductions in the right middle temporal gyrus and right superior temporal gyrus, whereas patients with right side unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss showed gray matter decreases in the left superior temporal gyrus and left middle temporal gyrus. A significant negative correlation with the duration of the sudden sensorineural hearing loss (R = −0.427, p = 0.012 for left-side unilateral SSNHL and R = −0.412, p = 0.013 for right-side unilateral SSNHL) was also found in these brain areas. There was no region with increased gray matter found in both groups of unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients.Conclusions:This study confirms that detectable decreased contralateral auditory cortical morphological changes have occurred in unilateral SSNHL patients within the acute period by voxel-based morphometry methods. The gray matter volumes of these brain areas also perform a negative correlation with the duration of the disease, which suggests a gradual brain structural impairment after the progression of the disease.

The incidence of melanoma, the most aggressive and life-threatening form of skin cancer, has significantly risen over recent decades. Therefore, it is essential to identify the mechanisms that underlie melanoma tumorigenesis and metastasis and to explore novel and effective melanoma treatment strategies. Accumulating evidence s uggests that aberrantly expressed long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have vital functions in multiple cancers. However, lncRNA functions in melanoma tumorigenesis and metastasis remain unclear. In this study, we investigated lncRNA and messenger RNA (mRNA) expression profiles in primary melanomas, metastatic melanomas and normal skin samples from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. We used GSE15605 as the training set (n = 74) and GSE7553 as the validation set (n = 58). In three comparisons (primary melanoma versus normal skin, metastatic melanoma versus normal skin, and metastatic melanoma versus primary melanoma), 178, 295 and 48 lncRNAs and 847, 1758, and 295 mRNAs were aberrantly expressed, respectively. We performed Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analyses to examine the differentially expressed mRNAs, and potential core lncRNAs were predicted by lncRNA-mRNA co-expression networks. Based on our results, 15 lncRNAs and 144 mRNAs were significantly associated with melanoma tumorigenesis and metastasis. A subsequent analysis suggested a critical role for a five-lncRNA signature during melanoma tumorigenesis and metastasis. Low expression of U47924.27 was significantly associated with decreased survival of patients with melanoma. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the expression patterns of lncRNAs and mRNAs during melanoma tumorigenesis and metastasis by re-annotating microarray data from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) microarray dataset. These findings reveal potential roles for lncRNAs during melanoma tumorigenesis and metastasis and provide a rich candidate reservoir for future studies.

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Background Glioblastomas have a high degree of malignancy, high recurrence rate, high mortality rate, and low cure rate. Searching for new markers of glioblastomas is of great significance for improving the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of glioma. Methods Using the GEO public database, we combined 34 glioma microarray datasets containing 1893 glioma samples and conducted genetic data mining through statistical analysis, bioclustering, and pathway analysis. The results were validated in TCGA, CGGA, and internal cohorts. We further selected a gene for subsequent experiments and conducted cell proliferation and cell cycle analyses to verify the biological function of this gene. Results Eight glioblastoma-specific differentially expressed genes were screened using GEO. In the TCGA and CGGA cohorts, patients with high CBX3 , BARD1 , EGFR , or IFRD1 expression had significantly shorter survival but patients with high GUCY1A3 or MOBP expression had significantly longer survival than patients with lower expression of these genes. After reviewing the literature, we selected the CBX3 gene for further experiments. We confirmed that CBX3 was overexpressed in glioblastoma by immunohistochemical analysis of tissue microarrays and qPCR analysis of surgical specimens. The functional assay results showed that silencing CBX3 arrests the cell cycle in the G2/M phase, thereby weakening the cell proliferation ability. Conclusions We used a multidisciplinary approach to analyze glioblastoma samples in 34 microarray datasets, revealing novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in patients with glioblastoma and providing a new direction for screening tumor markers. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12967-019-1930-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Diffuse low-grade glioma (DLGG) is a well-differentiated, slow-growing tumour with an inherent tendency to progress to high-grade glioma. The potential roles of genetic alterations in DLGG development have not yet been fully delineated. Therefore, the current study performed an integrated gene expression meta-analysis of eight independent, publicly available microarray datasets including 291 DLGGs and 83 non-glioma (NG) samples to identify gene expression signatures associated with DLGG. Using INMEX, 708 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (385 upregulated and 323 downregulated genes) were identified in DLGG compared to NG. Furthermore, 497 DEGs (222 upregulated and 275 downregulated genes) corresponding to two histological types were identified. Of these, high expression of HIP1R significantly correlated with increased overall survival, whereas high expression of TBXAS1 significantly correlated with decreased overall survival. Additionally, network-based meta-analysis identified FN1 and APP as the key hub genes in DLGG compared with NG. PTPN6 and CUL3 were the key hub genes identified in the astrocytoma relative to the oligodendroglioma. Further immunohistochemical validation revealed that MTHFD2 and SPARC were positively expressed in DLGG, whereas RBP4 was positively expressed in NG. These findings reveal potential molecular biomarkers for diagnosis and therapy in patients with DLGG and provide a rich and novel candidate reservoir for future studies.