AIM:To evaluate the effects of depression on parameters of cell-mediated immunity in patients with cancers of the digestive tract.METHODS:One hundred and eight adult patients of both sexes with cancers of the digestiv...AIM:To evaluate the effects of depression on parameters of cell-mediated immunity in patients with cancers of the digestive tract.METHODS:One hundred and eight adult patients of both sexes with cancers of the digestive tract admitted between March 2001 and February 2002 in the Department of Medical Oncology, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University were randomly enrolled in the study. The Zung self-rating depression scale (SDS),Zung self-rating anxiety scale(SAS),numeric rating scale (NRS) and social support rating scale (SSRS) were employed to evaluate the degree of depression and their contributing factors.In terms of their SDS index scores,the patients were categorized into depression group (SDS≥50) and non-depression group(SDS<50).Immunological parameters such as T-lymphocyte subsets and natural killer (NK) cell activities in peripheral blood were determined and compared between the two groups of patients.RESULTS:The SDS index was from 33.8 to 66.2 in the 108 cases,50% of these patients had a SDS index more than 50.Similarly,the SAS index of all the patients ranged from 35.0 to 62.0 and 46.3% of the cases had a SAS index above 50.Cubic curve estimation showed that the depression was positively correlated with anxiety and negatively with social support.Furthermore,the depression correlated with the tumor type,which manifested in a descending order as stomach,gallbladder, pancreas,intestine， esophagus,duodenum and rectum,according to their correlativity. Stepwise regression analysis suggested that hyposexuality,dispiritment,agitation,palpitation, low CD56 and anxiety were the significant factors contributing to depression.More severe anxiety (49.7±7.5 vs 45.3±6.9,P<0.05), pain (6.5±2.8 vs 4.6±3.2,P<0.05), poor social support (6.8±2.0vs 7.6±2.1,P<0.05),as well as decline of lymphocyte count (0.33±0.09vs 0.39±0.87, P<0.05) and CD56 (0.26±0.11 vs 0.29±0.11,P<0.05) were noted in the depression group compared with those of the non-depression patients. However,fewer obvious changes in CD4/CD8 ratio and other immunological parameters were found between the two groups.CONCLUSION:Depression occurs with a high incidence in patients with cancers of the digestive tract,which probably is not bhe sole factor leading to bhe impairment of immunological functions in these cases. However, comprehensive measures including psychological support should be taken in order to improve the immunological function,quality of life and clinical prognosis of these patients.展开更多
Cellular response to genotoxic stress is a very complex process, and it usually starts with the “sensing” or “detection” of the DNA damage,followed by a series of events that include signal transduction and activa...Cellular response to genotoxic stress is a very complex process, and it usually starts with the “sensing” or “detection” of the DNA damage,followed by a series of events that include signal transduction and activation of transcription factors.The activated transcription factors induce expressions of many genes which are involved in cellular functions such as DNA repair,cell cycle arrest,and cell death. There havebeen extensive studies from multiple disciplines exploring the mechanisms of cellular genotoxic responses, which have resulted in the identification of many cellular components involved in this process,including the mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) cascade. Although the initial activation of protein kinase cascade is not fully understood,human protein kinases ATM (ataxia-telangiectasia, mutated) and ATR (ATM and Rad3-related) are emerging as potential sensors of DNA damage. Current progresses in ATM/ATR research and related signaling pathways are discussed in this review, in an effort to facilitate a better understanding of genotoxic stress response.展开更多
This study was designed to obtain an understanding of the subjective well-being (SWB) status among China’s urban elderly, and to find out the major factors that could influence the status in question. Our survey was ...This study was designed to obtain an understanding of the subjective well-being (SWB) status among China’s urban elderly, and to find out the major factors that could influence the status in question. Our survey was conducted of 233 urban elderly individuals, and the data was statistically examined by multiple regression analysis with the results that: 1) The SWB of China’s urban elderly was relatively high as only 4.5% of all respondents considered themselves unhappy or very unhappy; 2) Major factors that had an influence on SWB included economic resource, mobility, age and social support; and 3) Five demographic variables accounted for 18.6% of the variance in SWB, which was slightly higher than that of foreign findings. It is concluded that financial security, active participation in physical and social activities, and social support are necessary for the improvement of the SWB of the elderly.展开更多
The present study disclosed that a) prime stimuli had a significant effect on the object in implicit tests, but not in the explicit condition, and b) greater priming occurred when the study and test fonts coincided th...The present study disclosed that a) prime stimuli had a significant effect on the object in implicit tests, but not in the explicit condition, and b) greater priming occurred when the study and test fonts coincided than whey they differeds, Moreover,the performance in implicit memory tests was more impaired by a shift from official to printed fonts than by a shift in the reverse direction. In addition, the results also revealed that low frequency materials produced more priming than did high frequency materials in implicit memory tests, but less effect of this variable on priming in explicit memory tests could be obtained with the same target characters. The above results implied that a transfer appropriate processing approach suggested by Roediger, Weldon and Challis (1989) is more acceptable to interpret the dissociation between implicit and explicit memory. The authors also critically commented on the implicit memory tests of Chinese widely used by researchers.展开更多
This study was aimed at investigating the sampling strategies for 2 types of figures: 3-D cubes and human faces. The research was focused on: (a) from where the sampling process started; (b) in what order the figures&...This study was aimed at investigating the sampling strategies for 2 types of figures: 3-D cubes and human faces. The research was focused on: (a) from where the sampling process started; (b) in what order the figures' features were sampled. The study consisted of 2 experiments: (a) sampling strategies for 3-D cubes; (b) sampling strategies for human faces. The results showed that: (a), for 3-D cubes, the first sampling was mostly located at the outline parts, rarely at the center part; while for human faces, the first sampling was mostly located at the hair and outline parts, rarely at the mouth or cheek parts, in most cases, the first sampling-position had no significant effects on cognitive performance and that (b), the sampling order, both for 3-D cubes and for human faces, was determined by the degree of difference among the sampled-features.展开更多
This report describes a new model of emotional stress, which was induced by randomly giving an empty water bottle to rats during watering periods per day for 14 consecutive days. The behavioral, endocrinological and i...This report describes a new model of emotional stress, which was induced by randomly giving an empty water bottle to rats during watering periods per day for 14 consecutive days. The behavioral, endocrinological and immunological consequences were investigated. The data showed that the emotional stress activated both the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the sympathetic nervous system, leading to the increased blood levels of corticosterone and catecholamine. It also elicited attacking and exploring behavior, suppressed the immune function of the rats, including leukocyte counts, weight of the spleen, and the level of specific anti-ovalbumin IgG antibody production. Presenting no water and no empty bottle to rats only evoked the exploring behavior, increased the corticosterone level and decreased the leukocyte counts. These findings demonstrate a role of psychological factors on behavioral, endocrinological and immunological functioning. The animal model described in the present study may serve as an analogue mimicking emotional stress experienced in humans (e.g. anger and/or anxiety), and may be useful for further studying the complex relationships among emotional stress, behavior, and immune function.展开更多
The current work examined neural substrates of perceptual grouping in human visual cortex using event-related potential (ERP) recording. Stimulus arrays consisted of local elements that were either evenly spaced (unif...The current work examined neural substrates of perceptual grouping in human visual cortex using event-related potential (ERP) recording. Stimulus arrays consisted of local elements that were either evenly spaced (uniform stimuli) or grouped into columns or rows by prox-imity or color similarity (grouping stimuli). High-density ERPs were recorded while subjects identified orientations of perceptual groups in stimulus arrays that were presented randomly in one of the four quadrants of the visual field. Both uniform and grouping stimulus arrays elicited an early ERP component (C1), which peaked at about 70 ms after stimulus onset and changed its polarity as a function of stimulated elevations. Dipole modeling based on realistic- head boundary-element models revealed generators of the C1 component in the calcarine cortex. The C1 was modu-lated by perceptual grouping of local elements based on proximity, and this grouping effect was stronger in the upper than in the lower visual field. The findings provide ERP evi-dence for the engagement of human primary visual cortex in the early stage of perceptual grouping.展开更多
A study-test paradigm was used to investigate the Dm (Differential memory) effect and the old/new effect of pictures. The participants were asked to judge whether the pictures were previously studied or not when they ...A study-test paradigm was used to investigate the Dm (Differential memory) effect and the old/new effect of pictures. The participants were asked to judge whether the pictures were previously studied or not when they were pre-sented with a series of pictures during the test phase. The event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during en-coding and retrieval phases. The results showed that (1) during 400—700 ms of encoding, the remembered old pic-tures elicited more positive waveforms than the forgotten old pictures at frontal and central areas; (2) during 500—600 ms of retrieval, the correctly judged old pictures elicited more positive waveforms than the correctly judged new pictures at medial-midline in both hemispheres; (3) the duration of Dm effect was longer than that of old/new effect for picture. The present results suggest that the Dm effect of pictures is dif-ferent from that of words and faces in spatial and temporal distributions. The neural mechanisms of picture encoding and picture retrieval are also different, which indicates that retrieval is not the simple recovery of encoding.展开更多
The impact of learning on brain functional laterality has not been systematically investigated. We em- ployed an event-related functional magnetic resonance im- aging combined with a delayed sequential movement task t...The impact of learning on brain functional laterality has not been systematically investigated. We em- ployed an event-related functional magnetic resonance im- aging combined with a delayed sequential movement task to investigate brain activation pattern and laterality during a transient practice in 12 subjects. Both hemispheres, involving motor areas and posterior parietal cortex, were engaged during motor preparation and execution, with larger activa- tion volume in the left hemisphere than in the right. Activa- tion volume in these regions significantly decreased after a transient practice, with more reduction in the right hemi- sphere resulting increase in left lateralization. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the physiological significance of brain functional laterality.展开更多
We investigated the effect of low spatial fre-quency (SF) filtering on neural substrates underlying global and local processing in the peripheral vision by measuring hemodynamic responses with functional magnetic reso...We investigated the effect of low spatial fre-quency (SF) filtering on neural substrates underlying global and local processing in the peripheral vision by measuring hemodynamic responses with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Subjects identified global or local shapes of compound letters that were either broadband in spatial- frequency spectrum or contrast balanced (CB) to removed low SFs and displayed randomly in the left or right visual fields. Attention to both broadband and CB global shapes generated stronger activation over the medial occipital cor-tex relative to local attention. Lateralized activations in association with global processing were observed over the right temporal-parietal junction for broadband stimuli whereas over the right fusiform gyrus for CB stimuli. Atten-tion to CB local shapes resulted in activations in the medial frontal cortex, bilateral inferior frontal and superior tempo-ral cortices. The results were discussed in terms of the competition between global and local information in determining brain activations in association with global/local processing of compound stimuli.展开更多
基金Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province,No.99SM50
文摘AIM:To evaluate the effects of depression on parameters of cell-mediated immunity in patients with cancers of the digestive tract.METHODS:One hundred and eight adult patients of both sexes with cancers of the digestive tract admitted between March 2001 and February 2002 in the Department of Medical Oncology, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University were randomly enrolled in the study. The Zung self-rating depression scale (SDS),Zung self-rating anxiety scale(SAS),numeric rating scale (NRS) and social support rating scale (SSRS) were employed to evaluate the degree of depression and their contributing factors.In terms of their SDS index scores,the patients were categorized into depression group (SDS≥50) and non-depression group(SDS<50).Immunological parameters such as T-lymphocyte subsets and natural killer (NK) cell activities in peripheral blood were determined and compared between the two groups of patients.RESULTS:The SDS index was from 33.8 to 66.2 in the 108 cases,50% of these patients had a SDS index more than 50.Similarly,the SAS index of all the patients ranged from 35.0 to 62.0 and 46.3% of the cases had a SAS index above 50.Cubic curve estimation showed that the depression was positively correlated with anxiety and negatively with social support.Furthermore,the depression correlated with the tumor type,which manifested in a descending order as stomach,gallbladder, pancreas,intestine， esophagus,duodenum and rectum,according to their correlativity. Stepwise regression analysis suggested that hyposexuality,dispiritment,agitation,palpitation, low CD56 and anxiety were the significant factors contributing to depression.More severe anxiety (49.7±7.5 vs 45.3±6.9,P<0.05), pain (6.5±2.8 vs 4.6±3.2,P<0.05), poor social support (6.8±2.0vs 7.6±2.1,P<0.05),as well as decline of lymphocyte count (0.33±0.09vs 0.39±0.87, P<0.05) and CD56 (0.26±0.11 vs 0.29±0.11,P<0.05) were noted in the depression group compared with those of the non-depression patients. However,fewer obvious changes in CD4/CD8 ratio and other immunological parameters were found between the two groups.CONCLUSION:Depression occurs with a high incidence in patients with cancers of the digestive tract,which probably is not bhe sole factor leading to bhe impairment of immunological functions in these cases. However, comprehensive measures including psychological support should be taken in order to improve the immunological function,quality of life and clinical prognosis of these patients.
基金Supported by National Key Basic Research and DevelopmentProgram No.2002CB512901,ChinaNational Natural Science Foundation No.30300277,Chinathe Initial Funds for Returned Overseas Chinese Scholar from Zhejiang University and Ministry of Education,China
文摘Cellular response to genotoxic stress is a very complex process, and it usually starts with the “sensing” or “detection” of the DNA damage,followed by a series of events that include signal transduction and activation of transcription factors.The activated transcription factors induce expressions of many genes which are involved in cellular functions such as DNA repair,cell cycle arrest,and cell death. There havebeen extensive studies from multiple disciplines exploring the mechanisms of cellular genotoxic responses, which have resulted in the identification of many cellular components involved in this process,including the mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) cascade. Although the initial activation of protein kinase cascade is not fully understood,human protein kinases ATM (ataxia-telangiectasia, mutated) and ATR (ATM and Rad3-related) are emerging as potential sensors of DNA damage. Current progresses in ATM/ATR research and related signaling pathways are discussed in this review, in an effort to facilitate a better understanding of genotoxic stress response.
文摘This study was designed to obtain an understanding of the subjective well-being (SWB) status among China’s urban elderly, and to find out the major factors that could influence the status in question. Our survey was conducted of 233 urban elderly individuals, and the data was statistically examined by multiple regression analysis with the results that: 1) The SWB of China’s urban elderly was relatively high as only 4.5% of all respondents considered themselves unhappy or very unhappy; 2) Major factors that had an influence on SWB included economic resource, mobility, age and social support; and 3) Five demographic variables accounted for 18.6% of the variance in SWB, which was slightly higher than that of foreign findings. It is concluded that financial security, active participation in physical and social activities, and social support are necessary for the improvement of the SWB of the elderly.
文摘The present study disclosed that a) prime stimuli had a significant effect on the object in implicit tests, but not in the explicit condition, and b) greater priming occurred when the study and test fonts coincided than whey they differeds, Moreover,the performance in implicit memory tests was more impaired by a shift from official to printed fonts than by a shift in the reverse direction. In addition, the results also revealed that low frequency materials produced more priming than did high frequency materials in implicit memory tests, but less effect of this variable on priming in explicit memory tests could be obtained with the same target characters. The above results implied that a transfer appropriate processing approach suggested by Roediger, Weldon and Challis (1989) is more acceptable to interpret the dissociation between implicit and explicit memory. The authors also critically commented on the implicit memory tests of Chinese widely used by researchers.
基金Project (No. 39670262) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of Chinathe International Scholar Exchange Fellowship Program (2000) of the Korea Foundation For Advanced Studies
文摘This study was aimed at investigating the sampling strategies for 2 types of figures: 3-D cubes and human faces. The research was focused on: (a) from where the sampling process started; (b) in what order the figures' features were sampled. The study consisted of 2 experiments: (a) sampling strategies for 3-D cubes; (b) sampling strategies for human faces. The results showed that: (a), for 3-D cubes, the first sampling was mostly located at the outline parts, rarely at the center part; while for human faces, the first sampling was mostly located at the hair and outline parts, rarely at the mouth or cheek parts, in most cases, the first sampling-position had no significant effects on cognitive performance and that (b), the sampling order, both for 3-D cubes and for human faces, was determined by the degree of difference among the sampled-features.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.39830130)the Knowledge Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No.KSCX2-2-03).
文摘This report describes a new model of emotional stress, which was induced by randomly giving an empty water bottle to rats during watering periods per day for 14 consecutive days. The behavioral, endocrinological and immunological consequences were investigated. The data showed that the emotional stress activated both the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the sympathetic nervous system, leading to the increased blood levels of corticosterone and catecholamine. It also elicited attacking and exploring behavior, suppressed the immune function of the rats, including leukocyte counts, weight of the spleen, and the level of specific anti-ovalbumin IgG antibody production. Presenting no water and no empty bottle to rats only evoked the exploring behavior, increased the corticosterone level and decreased the leukocyte counts. These findings demonstrate a role of psychological factors on behavioral, endocrinological and immunological functioning. The animal model described in the present study may serve as an analogue mimicking emotional stress experienced in humans (e.g. anger and/or anxiety), and may be useful for further studying the complex relationships among emotional stress, behavior, and immune function.
文摘The current work examined neural substrates of perceptual grouping in human visual cortex using event-related potential (ERP) recording. Stimulus arrays consisted of local elements that were either evenly spaced (uniform stimuli) or grouped into columns or rows by prox-imity or color similarity (grouping stimuli). High-density ERPs were recorded while subjects identified orientations of perceptual groups in stimulus arrays that were presented randomly in one of the four quadrants of the visual field. Both uniform and grouping stimulus arrays elicited an early ERP component (C1), which peaked at about 70 ms after stimulus onset and changed its polarity as a function of stimulated elevations. Dipole modeling based on realistic- head boundary-element models revealed generators of the C1 component in the calcarine cortex. The C1 was modu-lated by perceptual grouping of local elements based on proximity, and this grouping effect was stronger in the upper than in the lower visual field. The findings provide ERP evi-dence for the engagement of human primary visual cortex in the early stage of perceptual grouping.
文摘A study-test paradigm was used to investigate the Dm (Differential memory) effect and the old/new effect of pictures. The participants were asked to judge whether the pictures were previously studied or not when they were pre-sented with a series of pictures during the test phase. The event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during en-coding and retrieval phases. The results showed that (1) during 400—700 ms of encoding, the remembered old pic-tures elicited more positive waveforms than the forgotten old pictures at frontal and central areas; (2) during 500—600 ms of retrieval, the correctly judged old pictures elicited more positive waveforms than the correctly judged new pictures at medial-midline in both hemispheres; (3) the duration of Dm effect was longer than that of old/new effect for picture. The present results suggest that the Dm effect of pictures is dif-ferent from that of words and faces in spatial and temporal distributions. The neural mechanisms of picture encoding and picture retrieval are also different, which indicates that retrieval is not the simple recovery of encoding.
基金This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.30425008,30128005,and 30170325)the National Basic Research Program of China(Grant No.G1999054000)the Health Bureau of Zhejiang Province(Grant No.2002B019).
文摘The impact of learning on brain functional laterality has not been systematically investigated. We em- ployed an event-related functional magnetic resonance im- aging combined with a delayed sequential movement task to investigate brain activation pattern and laterality during a transient practice in 12 subjects. Both hemispheres, involving motor areas and posterior parietal cortex, were engaged during motor preparation and execution, with larger activa- tion volume in the left hemisphere than in the right. Activa- tion volume in these regions significantly decreased after a transient practice, with more reduction in the right hemi- sphere resulting increase in left lateralization. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the physiological significance of brain functional laterality.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.30225026)the Ministry of Science and Technology of China(Grant No.2002CCA01000)+1 种基金the National Institutes of Mental Health(Grant No.N1MH-41544)the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars,the Ministry of Education of China,and Peking University.
文摘We investigated the effect of low spatial fre-quency (SF) filtering on neural substrates underlying global and local processing in the peripheral vision by measuring hemodynamic responses with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Subjects identified global or local shapes of compound letters that were either broadband in spatial- frequency spectrum or contrast balanced (CB) to removed low SFs and displayed randomly in the left or right visual fields. Attention to both broadband and CB global shapes generated stronger activation over the medial occipital cor-tex relative to local attention. Lateralized activations in association with global processing were observed over the right temporal-parietal junction for broadband stimuli whereas over the right fusiform gyrus for CB stimuli. Atten-tion to CB local shapes resulted in activations in the medial frontal cortex, bilateral inferior frontal and superior tempo-ral cortices. The results were discussed in terms of the competition between global and local information in determining brain activations in association with global/local processing of compound stimuli.
