Browse Articles

Relation of Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol, High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein, and Lipoprotein(a) Each to Future Cardiovascular Events and Death After Acute Coronary Syndrome on High-Intensity Statin Therapy: An Analysis of the Placebo Arm of ODYSSEY OUTCOMES

Correction: Protocol for a mobile laboratory study of co-administration of cannabis concentrates with a standard alcohol dose in humans

Causal interactions between amplitude correlation and phase coupling in cortical networks

Abstract Phase coherence and amplitude correlations across brain regions are two main mechanisms of connectivity that govern brain dynamics at multiple scales. However, despite the increasing evidence that associates these mechanisms with brain functions and cognitive processes, the relationship between these different coupling modes is not well understood. Here, we study the causal relation between both types of functional coupling across multiple cortical areas. While most of the studies adopt a definition based on pairs of electrodes or regions of interest, we here employ a multichannel approach that provides us with a time-resolved definition of phase and amplitude coupling parameters. Using data recorded with a multichannel µECoG array from the ferret brain, we found that the transmission of information between both modes can be unidirectional or bidirectional, depending on the frequency band of the underlying signal. These results were reproduced in magnetoencephalography (MEG) data recorded during resting from the human brain. We show that this transmission of information occurs in a model of coupled oscillators and may represent a generic feature of a dynamical system. Together, our findings open the possibility of a general mechanism that may govern multi-scale interactions in brain dynamics.

Correction to: Differential Associations of Cigar, Pipe, and Smokeless Tobacco Use Versus Combustible Cigarette Use With Subclinical Markers of Inflammation, Thrombosis, and Atherosclerosis: The Cross-Cohort Collaboration–Tobacco Working Group

Analysis of the utilization of traditional medicine in Korea over 10 years (2013–2022): A repeated cross-sectional study using national health insurance data

Background This study aims to figure out the changes in traditional Korean medicine (TKM) utilization over the last decade, using the complete dataset of all claims submitted to the National Health Insurance (NHI) system in Korea. Methods This is a repeated cross-sectional study between 2013 and 2022. To observe TKM healthcare resources, we collected the number of TKM institutions, beds, and doctors. To observe changes in the utilization of TKM services, we collected the number of patients, claims, and medical expenses submitted to NHI. Data was analyzed according to inpatient/outpatient and hospitals/clinics. The compound annual growth rate was calculated. Results The growth was observed in the number of TKM hospitals, beds, and doctors. The changes in the claim count and the number of patients told us that TKM is going through a structural shift into hospital-centered services, even though the total number of patients utilizing TKM services decreased. The increase in TKM medical expenses was not merely a result of general inflation but reflects an increase in utilization of TKM services. Conclusions The key findings include a significant increase in inpatient services of TKM hospitals and medical expenses. The diversification of diagnostic and treatment methods highlights the evolving nature of TKM. Future research should focus on a more comprehensive study to examine the sociocultural and clinical factors influencing TKM utilization.

Psychometric properties and longitudinal measurement invariance of the treatment-induced neuropathy assessment scale in the Chinese cancer chemotherapy population

Principles for the Future of Biomedical Research in the United States and Optimizing the National Institutes of Health: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association

Groundbreaking achievements in science and medicine have contributed to reductions in cardiovascular disease and stroke mortality over the past 7 decades. Many of these advances were supported through investments by the National Institutes of Health, the global leader in funding biomedical research. This public investment has produced important economic returns, including supporting >400 000 jobs and roughly $93 billion in economic activity in the United States. Unfortunately, public funding has not kept pace with the burden of disease or rates of inflation. As the nation’s oldest and largest volunteer organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke, research is critical to the American Heart Association’s mission. Given the American Heart Association’s unique position in representation of patients, clinicians, and scientists and as a research funder, we offer the following principles to optimize the future of the US biomedical research enterprise in general and the National Institutes of Health in particular. Specifically, the United States should continue to prioritize innovative and impactful research; to improve efficiency and transparency in its peer review process; to lead in translating evidence into practice; to support the current and future biomedical workforce; and to ensure robust and reliable public investment for the future. The American Heart Association reiterates our strong support for the National Institutes of Health and federal agencies that fund and implement biomedical and population-based research initiatives, which yield important economic returns. These agencies are vital to support today’s current and future health challenges, to drive foundational science, to improve patient health, to reduce the global disease burden, to address upstream and preventive strategies, and to improve the value of our public health and health care investments.

Impact of Ginkgo biloba drug interactions on bleeding risk and coagulation profiles: A comprehensive analysis

This retrospective observational study was conducted to investigate the prevalence and clinical implications of drug interactions involving Ginkgo biloba extract on bleeding risk and coagulation profiles. Our analysis utilized data from patients admitted to Hai Phong International Hospital between January 2022 and December 2023. Inclusion criteria consisted of patients aged 18 years and above, those prescribed Ginkgo biloba extract alone or in combination with other medications, and the availability of complete medical records, including medication history, laboratory tests, and clinical outcomes. Out of 2,647 prescriptions meeting the inclusion criteria, 342 exhibited drug interactions with a prevalence rate of 12.94%. Notably, Ginkgo biloba extract frequent interacts with antiplatelets, anticoagulants, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, with Clopidogrel and Aspirin exhibiting the highest prevalence rates of 2.61% each. However, interactions with anticoagulants including direct oral anticoagulants and acenocoumarol, were not statistically significant in our analysis. Omeprazole was a frequently interacting drug (2.34%) of mild severity. Among the 747 patients analyzed for bleeding disorders, 31 (4.15%) exhibited bleeding symptoms. Correlation analysis indicated a strong association between clinical bleeding and abnormal coagulation results (OR, 1.75; p <  0.001). Moreover, significant correlations were found between Ginkgo biloba extract drug interactions and the bleeding risk (OR: 1.08, p <  0.001) and abnormal coagulation (OR: 1.49, p <  0.001). The severity of Ginkgo biloba extract drug interactions did not correlate with bleeding risk (OR: 1.01, p =  0.767) but influenced abnormal coagulation test results (OR: 0.813, p =  0.019). Specific medications, including clopidogrel, aspirin, celecoxib, loxoprofen, nifedipine, and omeprazole, were significantly associated with the risk of bleeding and abnormal coagulation (p <  0.05). Interactions with ticagrelor, etoricoxib, insulin, omeprazole, and domperidone were associated with abnormal coagulation tests without affecting the reported bleeding. These findings underscore the critical need of evaluating potential interactions involving Ginkgo biloba extract drug interactions in clinical pratice, particularly when assessing bleeding risk and managing coagulation.

Dose dependent relationship of metformin use and diabetic peripheral neuropathy risk in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Predicting Cardiovascular Risk With Use of Various Tobacco Products

Processing of translation units by student and semi-professional translators in translating texts with different levels of translation difficulty

This study investigates the impact of translation difficulty and translation experience on the processing of translation units (TUs) based on keylogging data. TUs are categorized into two types: production TUs (PTUs), which have linguistic equivalents in the source text (ST), and non-production TUs (N-PTUs), which lack such equivalents. N-PTUs typically include combinations of letters, morphemes, or non-text production keystrokes, such as backspaces, deletions, spaces, cursor movements, carriage returns, and mouse navigations. Data were collected from 55 fourth-year English major students and 35 semi-professional translators as they translated two STs of differing difficulty. The findings reveal no significant differences in the number of PTUs or the average size of PTUs (APTU size) between students and semi-professional translators. However, ST translation difficulty significantly influenced TU processing. For the more difficult text, the APTU size decreased notably, the number of 1–6-word PTUs increased substantially, and the frequency of ≥ 7-word PTUs remained relatively stable. Moreover, when translating the difficult text, semi-professional translators produced smaller APTU sizes, a greater number of N-PTUs, and a higher overall average number of PTUs compared to their performance on the relatively easy text. These results highlight the interplay between cognitive effort, ST translation difficulty, and translation experience in TU processing and have some implications for designing translation courses in academic contexts and developing professional translator training programs.

A causal effects of neutrophil extracellular traps and its biomarkers on acute respiratory distress syndrome: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Correction to: Integrative Multiomics in the Lung Reveals a Protective Role of Asporin in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Correction: Borrelia burgdorferi-mediated induction of miR146a-5p fine tunes the inflammatory response in human dermal fibroblasts

Application of the intelligent back propagation neural network in the optimization of sports industry structure

Natriuretic Peptides for the Diagnosis of Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction

Correction: Human intracardiac SSEA4+CD34- cells show features of cycling, immature cardiomyocytes and are distinct from Side Population and C-kit+CD45- cells

Small target detection in coal mine underground based on improved RTDETR algorithm

Abstract Aiming at the problem of low detection accuracy of small targets such as helmets and self-rescuers in complex scenarios in coal mines, a small target detection method based on improved Real-Time DEtection TRansformer (RTDETR) for underground coal mines is proposed. A new BasicBlock-PConv module was created by incorporating Partial Convolutions (PConv) into the conventional BasicBlock, which was based on the FasterNet network. This decreased the number of network parameters and computation. By introducing Deformable Attention in the coding part of the RTDETR algorithm, the deformable feature of this attention mechanism is used to improve the network’s ability to extract effective image features. In order to increase the accuracy of tiny object detection and concentrate on the detail information in the shallow feature map, the small object detection layer P2 is simultaneously added to the Head of the coding section. Based on the improvement of the above three parts, the improved PDP-RTDETR working model in this paper achieves a Mean Average Precision (mAP) of 56.6% for detecting small targets on the self-constructed dataset, which is 11.2, 12.1, 9.9, and 5.2% better than that of the traditional models Yolov5s, Yolov7-Tiny, Yolov8n, and RTDETR, respectively. Meanwhile, the improved PDP-RTDETR algorithm parameter count is reduced by 2.6 M compared to the base model. The results suggest that the approach can successfully increase the detection accuracy of small targets in the mine scene, which gives a certain reference value for the application of small target detection.

Correction to: Principles for the Future of Biomedical Research in the United States and Optimizing the National Institutes of Health: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association

Comparison of efficacy and safety of mirabegron and vibegron in the treatment of Overactive Bladder (OAB) in older women: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background After the introduction of anticholinergic drugs for the treatment of overactive bladder (OAB), the discovery of β-adrenergic agonists has helped reduce the side effects associated with the former. Currently, the two available medications, mirabegron and vibegron, are β-adrenergic agonists. However, clinical practitioners are still faced with the dilemma of which drug to choose. Objective To analyze and compare the efficacy and adverse effects of the two medications. Methods A literature search was conducted to identify randomized controlled trials using mirabegron and vibegron for the treatment of OAB. Databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Embase were searched. The search cutoff date was July 25 2024. Data extraction and quality assessment were performed using standardized methods. A meta-analysis was then conducted using RevMan software and a random-effects model, with studies weighted according to sample size and variance. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I² statistic. All statistical analyses were performed using RevMan, and results were presented as effect sizes (e.g., mean difference or risk ratio). Results Three randomized controlled trials compared the safety and efficacy of mirabegron and vibegron head-to-head, involving 368 patients. The trials, each lasting 8 or 12 weeks. The trials compared the changes in various indices of the OABSS (Overactive Bladder Symptom Score) between the two drugs. The statistical methods used in the analysis included Mean Difference (MD), 95% Confidence Interval (CI), p-value, and I² statistic. For OABSS: MD =  0.38, 95% CI =  − 0.19 to 0.95, p =  0.28, I² =  21%; for Q1: MD =  0.08, 95% CI =  − 0.01 to 0.26, p =  0.31, I² =  4%; for Q2: MD =  0.08, 95% CI =  − 0.21 to 0.37, p =  0.67, I² =  0%; for Q3: MD =  0.05, 95% CI =  − 0.45 to 0.56, p =  0.90, I² =  0%; for Q4: MD =  − 0.21, 95% CI =  − 0.68 to 0.27, p =  0.35, I² =  0%. The relative risk (RR) of adverse effects between the two drugs was: RR =  0.87, 95% CI =  0.57 to 1.34, p =  0.27, I² =  25%; for constipation: RR =  0.73, 95% CI =  0.37 to 1.43, p =  0.27, I² =  25%; and for dry mouth: RR =  0.98, 95% CI =  0.42 to 2.30, p =  0.78, I² =  0%. Conclusion There appears to be no statistically significant difference in efficacy and safety between mirabegron and vibegron for OAB patients. Further high-quality prospective studies are needed to confirm these results.