Plos One
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The experience of pain and disgust share many similarities, given that both are aversive experiences resulting from bodily threat and leading to defensive reactions. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether facial expressions are distinct enough to encode the specific quality of pain and disgust or whether they just encode the similar negative valence and arousal level of both states. In sixty participants pain and disgust were induced by heat stimuli and pictures, respectively. ⋯ Whereas pain was mostly encoded by contraction of the muscles surrounding the eyes (by itself or in combination with contraction of the eyebrows); disgust was mainly accompanied by contraction of the eyebrows and--in contrast to pain--by raising of the upper lip as well as the combination of upper lip raise and eyebrow contraction. Our data clearly suggests that facial expressions seem to be distinct enough to encode not only the general valence and arousal associated with these two bodily aversive experiences, namely pain and disgust, but also the specific origin of the threat to the body. This implies that the differential decoding of these two states by an observer is possible without additional verbal or contextual information, which is of special interest for clinical practice, given that raising awareness in observers about these distinct differences could help to improve the detection of pain in patients who are not able to provide a self-report of pain (e.g., patients with dementia).
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Clinical Trial
Identification of novel biomarkers for sepsis prognosis via urinary proteomic analysis using iTRAQ labeling and 2D-LC-MS/MS.
Sepsis is the major cause of death for critically ill patients. Recent progress in proteomics permits a thorough characterization of the mechanisms associated with critical illness. The purpose of this study was to screen potential biomarkers for early prognostic assessment of patients with sepsis. ⋯ This study provides the proteomic analysis of urine to identify prognostic biomarkers of sepsis. The seven identified proteins provide insight into the mechanism of sepsis. Low urinary LAMP-1 levels may be useful for early prognostic assessment of sepsis.
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To examine the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on mortality in patients with bacteremia and the underlying factors that may mediate differences in mortality. ⋯ Low SES was strongly associated with increased 30-day mortality after bacteremia. Less social support, more pre-existing comorbidity, more substance abuse, and differences in place of acquisition and agent of infection appeared to mediate much of the observed disparities in mortality.
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Hashimoto's encephalopathy is considered as a treatable dementia, but it is often misdiagnosed. We investigated cognitive impairment and the MRI pathology of Hashimoto's encephalopathy patients. ⋯ Except that the naming ability was retained, the impairments in cognitive functions for the Hashimoto's encephalopathy patients were similar to those of Alzheimer's disease patients. These results were consistent with the MRI findings.
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Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the critical public health problems in China. The full spectrum of the disease ranges from simple steatosis and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC). The infiltration of inflammatory cells characterizes NASH. This characteristic contributes to the progression of hepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis, and HCC. Therefore, distinguishing NASH from NAFLD is crucial. ⋯ The novel scoring system may be considered as a useful model in predicting the presence of NASH in NAFLD patients.