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Bee venom (BV), a type of defensive venom, has been confirmed to have favorable activities, such as anti-tumor, neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-infectivity effects, etc. This study reviewed the recent progress on the pharmacological effects and mechanisms of BV and its main components against cancer, neurological disorders, inflammatory diseases, pain, microbial diseases, liver, kidney, lung and muscle injury, and other diseases in literature during the years 2018-2021. The related target proteins of BV and its main components against the diseases include Akt, mTOR, JNK, Wnt-5α, HIF-1α, NF-κB, JAK2, Nrf2, BDNF, Smad2/3, AMPK, and so on, which are referring to PI3K/Akt/mTOR, MAPK, Wnt/β-catenin, HIF-1α, NF-κB, JAK/STAT, Nrf2/HO-1, TrkB/CREB/BDNF, TGF-β/Smad2/3, and AMPK signaling pathways, etc. Further, with the reported targets, the potential effects and mechanisms on diseases were bioinformatically predicted via Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway, disease ontology semantic and enrichment (DOSE) and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analyses. This review provides new insights into the therapeutic effects and mechanisms of BV and its main components on diseases.

Data accumulated in the last years indicate that certain visual and acoustic interventions are of geroprotective potential. Among them are bright light, white noise, and also rhythmic sensory stimulation (flickering light, binaural rhythms), etc. It should be noted that visual and acoustic interventions are simple in use, safe and practically do not have adverse side effects and do not need special medical control. Here, we review the studies on using the visual and acoustic interventions for improving mental health with regard to the advanced age and age-related pathology. We also discuss possible mechanisms of their therapeutic action and points for the future investigations.

As a widespread back condition in orthopedics, spondylitis is rarely caused by . Here, we report a rare case of spondylitis caused by associated with .

A healthy 23-year-old female developed generalized pruritus over a year that began on her feet and gradually progressed to involve more than 50% of her entire body surface area. Punch skin biopsies were inconclusive, whereas a two-view chest x-ray was suspicious for lymphadenopathy. A chest computed tomography scan with contrast identified an anterior mediastinal mass which was biopsied and diagnosed as a nodular sclerosis type of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Subsequently, appropriate therapy was initiated resulting in complete resolution of the patient's chronic itch. This case underscores the clinical significance of a comprehensive systemic evaluation in chronic pruritus of unclear etiology.

The amygdala is a critical brain site for regulation of emotion-associated behaviors such as pain and anxiety. Recent studies suggest that differential cell types and synaptic circuits within the amygdala complex mediate interacting and opposing effects on emotion and pain. However, the underlying cellular and circuit mechanisms are poorly understood at present. Here we used optogenetics combined with electrophysiological analysis of synaptic inputs to investigate pain-induced synaptic plasticity within the amygdala circuits in rats. We found that 50% of the cell population in the lateral division of the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeAl) received glutamate inputs from both basolateral amygdala (BLA) and from the parabrachial nucleus (PBN), and 39% of the remaining CeAl cells received glutamate inputs only from PBN. Inflammatory pain lasting 3 days, which induced anxiety, produced sensitization in synaptic activities of the BLA-CeAl-medial division of CeA (CeAm) pathway primarily through a postsynaptic mechanism. Moreover, in CeAl cells receiving only PBN inputs, pain significantly augmented the synaptic strength of the PBN inputs. In contrast, in CeAl cells receiving both BLA and PBN inputs, pain selectively increased the synaptic strength of BLA inputs, but not the PBN inputs. Electrophysiological analysis of synaptic currents showed that the increased synaptic strength in both cases involved a postsynaptic mechanism. These findings reveal two main populations of CeAl cells that have differential profiles of synaptic inputs and show distinct plasticity in their inputs in response to anxiety-associated pain, suggesting that the specific input plasticity in the two populations of CeAl cells may encode a different role in amygdala regulation of pain and emotion.

Excessive pain during medical procedures is a worldwide medical problem. Most scald burns occur in children under 6, who are often undermedicated. Adjunctive Virtual Reality (VR) distraction has been shown to reduce pain in children aged 6-17, but little is known about VR analgesia in young children. This study tests whether desktop VR (VR Animal Rescue World) can reduce the just noticeable pressure pain of children aged 2-10.

Neuropathic pain is sometimes difficult to manage because of limited efficacy of analgesic monotherapy even at high doses. Combination therapy may help address this issue, but there is little evidence for its effectiveness. Therefore, we evaluated the efficacy of combination therapy with pregabalin, an anchor drug for treating neuropathic pain, using the rat L5 spinal nerve ligation model.

Neuropathic pain is a widespread problem with a big impact on quality of life. The currently used drug regimens are often insufficiently effective or cause – sometimes unacceptable – side effects. Intravenous lidocaine could be an alternative treatment, by blocking spontaneous depolarization and hyperexcitability in upregulated sodium channels in nociceptors. Research so far has shown varying results but the treatment protocols differed a lot and follow-up was usually short. In our hospital, lidocaine infusions have been applied for many years in a unique treatment protocol consisting of a relatively high dose of lidocaine (1000 mg) administered over 25 hours. Our aim is to share information on both the efficacy and safety of this treatment schedule.

Patients diagnosed with pituitary apoplexy and presenting with acute visual deterioration require urgent surgical resection. This is also commonly associated with pituitary hypopituitarism that requires hormonal replacement for correction. This study was undertaken to evaluate the clinical recovery of 45 patients diagnosed with symptomatic pituitary apoplexy who underwent early (within 72 h of symptom onset) endoscopic transsphenoidal surgical resection with an emphasis on visual, ocular craniopathy, and endocrinological outcome.

Using data from all those born in a single week in 1958 in Britain we track associations between short pain and chronic pain in mid-life (age 44) and subsequent health, wellbeing and labor market outcomes in later life. We focus on data taken at age 50 in 2008, when the Great Recession hit and then five years later at age 55 in 2013 and again at age 62 in 2021 during the Covid pandemic. We find those suffering both short-term and chronic pain at age 44 continue to report pain and poor general health in their 50s and 60s. However, the associations are much stronger for those with chronic pain. Furthermore, chronic pain at age 44 is associated with a range of poor mental health outcomes, pessimism about the future and joblessness at age 55 whereas short-duration pain at age 44 is not. Pain has strong predictive power for pain later in life: pain in childhood predicts pain in mid-life, even when one controls for pain in early adulthood. Pain appears to reflect other vulnerabilities as we find that chronic pain at age 44 predicts whether or not a respondent has Covid nearly twenty years later.