Early hepatitis B viral DNA clearance predicts treatment response at week 96.

Aim: To investigate whether hepatitis viral DNA load at 24 wk of treatment predicts response at 96 wk in patients with chronic hepatitis B.

Methods: A total of 172 hepatitis B envelope antigen (HBeAg)-positive chronic hepatitis B patients who received initial treatment at 16 tertiary hospitals in Hunan Province, China were enrolled in this study. All patients received conventional doses of lamivudine and adefovir dipivoxil, telbivudine, entecavir dispersible tablets, or entecavir tablets for 96 wk.

Behavioral representation of cost and benefit balance in rats.

Decision making is dependent upon individual motivation. Previous studies showed that animals with higher levels of motivation are more likely to invest more time to acquire larger rewards rather than acquiring smaller rewards with less time to wait. However, little is known about how this motivation mediates the cognitive effort animals devote upon making said decisions in detail.

[Treating Elderly Coronary Heart Disease Patients by Different Approaches of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: an Observation of Clinical Efficacy].

Objective: To observe thee efficacy of different ways of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for treating elderly coronary heart disease (CHD) patients.

Methods: Totally 470 elderly CHD patients were classified to three age brackets (equal to or more than 85 years old, 60 to 74 years old, 75 to 84 years old). They were assigned to the transradial intervention (TRI) group (236 cases) and the transfemoral intervention (TFI) group (234 cases) according to different intervention pathways.

Phenylephrine enhances glutamate release in the medial prefrontal cortex through interaction with N-type Ca2+ channels and release machinery.

α1 -adrenoceptors (α1 -ARs) stimulation has been found to enhance excitatory processes in many brain regions. A recent study in our laboratory showed that α1 -ARs stimulation enhances glutamatergic transmission via both pre- and post-synaptic mechanisms in layer V/VI pyramidal cells of the rat medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). However, a number of pre-synaptic mechanisms may contribute to α1 -ARs-induced enhancement of glutamate release.

Reduction of glutamate release probability and the number of releasable vesicles are required for suppression of glutamatergic transmission by β1-adrenoceptors in the medial prefrontal cortex.

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a critical role in cognitive functions, including working memory, attention regulation and behavioral inhibition. Microinjection of β1-adrenoceptor (β1-AR) agonist into the PFC has been shown to impair PFC cognitive function. However, the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms have not been determined yet.

Activation of α₁-adrenoceptors enhances excitatory synaptic transmission via a pre- and postsynaptic protein kinase C-dependent mechanism in the medial prefrontal cortex of rats.

The physiological effects of α₁-adrenoceptors (α₁-ARs) have been examined in many brain regions. However, little is known about the mechanism of modulation on synaptic transmission by α₁-ARs in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). The present study investigated how α₁-AR activation regulates glutamatergic synaptic transmission in layer V/VI pyramidal cells of the rat mPFC.