Gut microbiota and functional outcome after ischemic stroke: a Mendelian randomization study.

Background: Previous studies have shown that gut microbiota dysbiosis could affect clinical prognosis through an unknown mechanism. However, the causal relationship between the gut microbiota and the functional outcome after ischemic stroke remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the causal association between the gut microbiota and the functional outcome after ischemic stroke using Mendelian randomization (MR).

Effect of acute levodopa challenge test on cerebral blood flow in Parkinson's disease with the supine-to-standing transcranial Doppler test.

Background: Levodopa, a common drug that improves symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), can induce a reduction in blood pressure (BP); however, the effect of levodopa on cerebral blood flow (CBF) remains unclear.

Objectives: To observe the changes in BP and CBF during active standing before and after the acute levodopa challenge test (ALCT) and analyse the influencing factors of CBF in patients with PD.

Methods: BP and CBF velocity were simultaneously recorded by continuous beat-to-beat non-invasive BP monitoring and transcranial Doppler at supine and orthostatic positions twice, before and after ALCT.

Numerical chromosomal instability mediates susceptibility to radiation treatment.

The exquisite sensitivity of mitotic cancer cells to ionizing radiation (IR) underlies an important rationale for the widely used fractionated radiation therapy. However, the mechanism for this cell cycle-dependent vulnerability is unknown. Here we show that treatment with IR leads to mitotic chromosome segregation errors in vivo and long-lasting aneuploidy in tumour-derived cell lines.

Preliminary study on the quick detection of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome by saliva analysis using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopic technique.

45 saliva samples of AIDS patients and 55 saliva samples in normal population were detected by the Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) system. And the spectrum data were analyzed using the Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm, one of the data mining technologies. Statistical analysis showed that two groups were distinguished effectively.