Plos One
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Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is linked to post-inflammatory and stress-correlated factors that cause changes in the perception of visceral events. Probiotic bacteria may be effective in treating IBS symptoms. Here, we have investigated whether early life administration of VSL#3, a mixture of 8 probiotic bacteria strains, protects against development of visceral hypersensitivity driven by neonatal maternal separation (NMS), a rat model of IBS. ⋯ Accession number of repository for expression microarray data is GSE38942 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE38942).
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Real-time brain-machine interfaces (BMI) have focused on either estimating the continuous movement trajectory or target intent. However, natural movement often incorporates both. Additionally, BMIs can be modeled as a feedback control system in which the subject modulates the neural activity to move the prosthetic device towards a desired target while receiving real-time sensory feedback of the state of the movement. ⋯ The optimal feedback control design also results in trajectories that are smoother and have lower estimation error. The two-stage decoder also performs better than linear regression approaches in offline cross-validation analyses. Our results demonstrate the advantage of a BMI design that jointly estimates the target and trajectory of movement and more closely mimics the sensorimotor control system.
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The mechanism for the contribution of eosinophils (EOS) to asthma pathophysiology is not fully understood. Genome-wide expression analysis of airway EOS by microarrays has been limited by the ability to generate high quality RNA from sufficient numbers of airway EOS. ⋯ We identified 57 genes that were highly expressed by BAL EOS compared to unseparated BAL cells after in vivo allergen challenge. 41 of these genes had not been previously described in EOS and are thus potential new candidates to elucidate EOS contribution to airway biology.
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To assess sexual risk-taking of female sex workers (FSWs) with emotional partners (boyfriends and husbands), compared to regular and casual clients. Experiences of violence and the degree of relationship control that FSWs have with emotional partners are also described. ⋯ High-risk sexual behaviour, low control and frequent violence in relationships with emotional partners heighten FSWs' vulnerability and high HIV risk, requiring targeted interventions that also encompass emotional partners.
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The therapeutic efficiency of bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNCs) autologous transplantation for myocardial infarction (MI) remains low. Here we developed a novel strategy to improve cardiac repair by preconditioning BMMNCs via angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT2R) stimulation. ⋯ Preconditioning of BMMNCs via AT2R stimulation exerts protective effect against MI. Stimulation of AT2R in BMMNCs may provide a new strategy to improving therapeutic efficiency of stem cells for post MI cardiac repair.