Plos One
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Despite recent papers on problems associated with full-model and stepwise regression, their use is still common throughout ecological and environmental disciplines. Alternative approaches, including generating multiple models and comparing them post-hoc using techniques such as Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC), are becoming more popular. However, these are problematic when there are numerous independent variables and interpretation is often difficult when competing models contain many different variables and combinations of variables. ⋯ Testing REVS on ten further datasets suggested that this is typical, with R(2) values being higher than full or stepwise models (mean improvement = 31% and 7%, respectively). Results are ecologically intuitive as even when there are several competing models, they share a set of "core" variables and differ only in presence/absence of one or two additional variables. We conclude that REVS is useful for analysing complex datasets, including those in ecology and environmental disciplines.
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Spectro-temporal properties of auditory cortex neurons have been extensively studied with artificial sounds but it is still unclear whether they help in understanding neuronal responses to communication sounds. Here, we directly compared spectro-temporal receptive fields (STRFs) obtained from the same neurons using both artificial stimuli (dynamic moving ripples, DMRs) and natural stimuli (conspecific vocalizations) that were matched in terms of spectral content, average power and modulation spectrum. On a population of auditory cortex neurons exhibiting reliable tuning curves when tested with pure tones, significant STRFs were obtained for 62% of the cells with vocalizations and 68% with DMR. ⋯ Moreover STRF(voc) predicted neural responses to vocalizations more accurately than STRF(dmr) predicted neural response to DMRs, despite similar spike-timing reliability for both sets of stimuli. Cortical bursts, which potentially introduce nonlinearities in evoked responses, did not explain the differences between STRF(voc) and STRF(dmr). Altogether, these results suggest that the nonlinearity of auditory cortical responses makes it difficult to predict responses to communication sounds from STRFs computed from artificial stimuli.
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Spinal cord injury (SCI), including immediate mechanical injury and secondary injury, is associated with the inflammatory response, apoptosis and oxidative stress in response to traumatic injury. Tanshinone IIA (TIIA) is one of the major extracts obtained from Salvia miltiorrhiza BUNGE, which has anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic effects on many diseases. However, little is known about the effects of TIIA treatment on SCI. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to evaluate the pharmacological action of TIIA on secondary damage and the underlying mechanisms of experimental SCI in rats. ⋯ The results clearly show that TIIA has a prominent protective effect against SCI through inhibiting the inflammatory response and apoptosis in the spinal cord tissue after SCI.
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Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is common in patients approaching the end-of-life (EoL), but these patients rarely receive palliative care. We compared the utility of a palliative care prognostic tool (Gold Standards Framework (GSF)) and the Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) score, to help identify patients approaching EoL. ⋯ This study has highlighted a potentially large number of ACS patients eligible for EoL care. GSF or GRACE could be used in the hospital setting to help identify these patients. GSF identifies ACS patients with more comorbidity and at increased risk of hospital readmission.
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Microglia might play an important role in nociceptive processing and hyperalgesia by neuroinflammatory process. Mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) expressed on microglia might play a central role in the modulation of microglia activity. However the roles of microglia and MR in radicular pain were not well understood. This study sought to investigate whether selective MR antagonist spironolactone develop antinociceptive effects on radicular pain by inhibition neuroinflammation induced by spinal microglia activation. ⋯ These results suggest that intrathecal delivery spironolactone has therapeutic effects on radicular pain in rats. Decreasing the activation of glial cells, the production of proinflammatory cytokines and down-regulating the expression and phosphorylation of NMDA receptors in the spinal dorsal horn and dorsal root ganglia are the main mechanisms contributing to its beneficial effects.