Prediction of Kirsten rat sarcoma () mutation in rectal cancer with amide proton transfer-weighted magnetic resonance imaging.

Background: Kirsten rat sarcoma () mutation drives resistance to anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (anti-EGFR)-targeted therapies in rectal cancer. Amide proton transfer-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (APTw MRI) might be a supplement to the evaluation of mutation because the APTw value can reflect mobile cellular protein content . This study aimed to determine whether APTw MRI could predict mutation in rectal cancer and compare this technique with diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI).

Emotional contagion and cognitive empathy regulate the effect of depressive symptoms on empathy-related brain functional connectivity in patients with chronic back pain.

Background: Chronic pain and depression share common neural mechanisms, but their impacts on empathy are different. It is unclear how comorbid depressive symptoms affect empathy-related brain function in patients with chronic pain.

Methods: A total of 29 healthy participants and 107 patients with chronic back pain (CBP) were included in this study.

The Duration of Chronic Pain Can Affect Brain Functional Changes of the Pain Matrix in Patients with Chronic Back Pain: A Resting-State fMRI Study.

Purpose: This study was conducted to explore the differences in functional changes in the pain matrix in patients with chronic back pain (CBP) at different stages and identify whether these brain changes were related to the pain duration.

Patients And Methods: In this study, 29 healthy individuals and 54 patients with CBP were recruited. According to the pain duration, 25 patients (3 to 12 months) were divided into the CBP-S group and 29 patients (≥ 24 months) were divided into the CBP-L group.

Anti-obesity and hypolipidemic effects of ethanolic extract from Alpinia officinarum Hance (Zingiberaceae) in rats fed high-fat diet.

To investigate the anti-obesity and hypolipidemic effects of Alpinia officinarum ethanolic extract (AOE) for the first time, anti-obesity models in vivo were used. Ten male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed normal control diet (NC); other groups of rats were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) with or without different proportions of AOE (AOE-1, 3%; AOE-2, 5%) for 6 weeks to examine feed intake, body and adipose tissue weight, serum total cholesterol (Total-C), triacylglycerol (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and leptin levels, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotranferase activities, hepatic Total-C and TG levels, and the pathological changes in liver and epididymal adipose tissues. Interestingly, feed intakes among the experimental groups were not significantly different.