Effect of vitamin D supplementation on hormones and menstrual cycle regularization in polycystic ovary syndrome women: A systemic review and meta-analysis.

AIM: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a prevalent endocrine disease among women of childbearing age. Women with PCOS frequently experience reproductive complications, which are closely associated with the concentration of vitamin D. This systemic review and meta-analysis were conducted to elucidate the possible effect of vitamin D supplementation in PCOS women on hormones, including Luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), the ratio of LH and FSH (LH/FSH), and the menstrual cycle regularization. METHODS: We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Ovid MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and EMBASE for the relevant articles published up to January 2022. The pooled estimates were calculated using RevMan 5.4 software. RESULTS: Twelve studies involving 849 PCOS patients were included. Our study indicated that vitamin D supplementation could reduce serum LH (standard mean difference [SMD]: -0.41; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.54, -0.28; p < 0.01). Subgroup analysis identified that the supplementation of vitamin D ≤4000 IU/day (SMD: -0.69; 95% CI: -1.15, -0.23; p < 0.01), treatment time ≤8 weeks (SMD: -0.61; 95% CI: -0.95, -0.26; p < 0.01), and vitamin D co-supplementation (SMD: -0.37; 95% CI: -0.65, -0.10; p < 0.01) were related to reduce serum LH level. In addition, vitamin D supplementation improved the regularity of menstrual cycle significantly (risk ratio [RR]: 1.35; 95% CI: 1.18, 1.54; p < 0.01). In stratified analysis, the significant effects only existed in dosage of vitamin D >4000 IU (RR: 1.62; 95% CI: 1.02, 2.57; p < 0.01), treatment time >8 weeks (RR: 1.41; 95% CI: 1.06, 1.87; p = 0.02) and vitamin D co-supplementation (RR: 1.18; 95% CI: 1.03, 1.35; p = 0.02). However, vitamin D might have no effects on serum FSH (SMD: -0.05; 95% CI: -0.42, 0.32; p = 0.79) and LH/FSH (SMD: -0.24; 95% CI: -0.55, 0.08; p = 0.14) in PCOS patients. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence from the existing randomized controlled trials indicated that vitamin D supplementation might improve the LH level and the menstrual cycle regularization but did not have any effect on FSH and LH/FSH levels in PCOS patients.

Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy and peripheral neuropathy in a patient with Good's syndrome.

Good's syndrome (GS) is an immunodeficiency characterized by thymoma, hypogammaglobulinemia, and impaired T-cell function. Progressive multifocal encephalopathy (PML), an infection caused by JC virus (JCV), usually occurs in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), or in patients on treatment with immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory drugs. There were few reports of PML due to GS, especially with the comorbidity of peripheral neuropathy. We describe a case of an uncommon presentation of PML and peripheral neuropathy in a male who presented with blurred vision, cognitive changes, limb weakness, and numbness over a 4-month period due to GS. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of PML and peripheral neuropathy due to GS. This case aims to highlight that it is necessary to consider the possibility of PML due to GS in patients with thymoma and intracranial lesions, and we should focus not only on opportunistic infections of the central nervous system, such as PML, but also on peripheral neuropathy.

Determination of skeletal muscle mass by aspartate aminotransferase / alanine aminotransferase ratio, insulin and FSH in Chinese women with sarcopenia.

BACKGROUND: Sarcopenia is an age-related skeletal muscle disorder that involves a loss of muscle mass or strength and physiological function. Skeletal muscle deteriorates in both quantity and quality. The endocrine system is an important regulator of muscle metabolism. Therefore, we aimed to explore the relationship between biochemical markers and muscle mass in sarcopenia. METHODS: We used the AWGS 2014 as the diagnostic criteria for sarcopenia, considering both the loss in muscle mass, muscle strength and physical performance. A total of 2837 elderly female participants over 50 years of age from the West China Health and Aging Trend (WCHAT) study were included. Insulin, glucose, 25(OH)VD, procalcitonin, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, total protein, prealbumin, albumin, thyroid-stimulating hormone, free triiodothyronine, free tetraiodothyronine, triglycerides, cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, very low-density lipoprotein, cortisol, and follicle-stimulating hormone were measured. Based on the findings of univariate analysis, multivariate regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were established. RESULTS: Participants with sarcopenia had significantly lower free triiodothyronine, insulin, total protein, albumin, prealbumin, albumin/prealbumin ratio (A/G), alanine aminotransferase, triglycerides, and very low-density lipoprotein concentrations (P < 0.05). Compared with those without sarcopenia, those with sarcopenia had significantly higher free tetraiodothyronine, cortisol, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase ratio (AST/ALT), and high-density lipoprotein concentrations (P < 0.05). Insulin (OR = 0.854), FSH (OR = 1.016), and the AST/ALT ratio (OR = 1.819) were independent risk factors for low muscle mass (P < 0.001). The AUC of insulin was the highest, followed by the AST/ALT ratio and FSH (0.691, 0.671, and 0.634, respectively), and the AUC of the mixture of the above three reached 0.736. CONCLUSION: In this cross-sectional study of elderly Chinese females aged over 50 years from the WCHAT, FSH, insulin, and AST/ALT ratio were associated with sarcopenia and risk factors for low muscle mass.

A concordance study determining language dominance between navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation and the Wada test in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE: It remains unclear whether transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can replace the Wada test to determine language hemisphere dominance (HD). Using the Wada test as the gold standard, this study aimed to investigate the accuracy of navigated TMS (nTMS) in determining language HD. METHODS: This study enrolled nine right-handed patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. We hypothesized that application of nTMS to language-related areas of the language-dominant hemisphere would induce positive manifestation of language dysfunction (LD). To test our hypothesis, the patients were instructed to perform a visual object-naming task while nTMS was applied to the anterior (e.g., Broca's area) and posterior (e.g., Wernicke's area) regions, which are closely related to language processing. The Wada test result was used as the gold standard, and the diagnostic value of nTMS was assessed using the Kappa consistency test. RESULTS: The nTMS-induced LD positive rate for the bilateral anterior language areas (85.7%) was higher than that for the posterior language areas (57.1%). There was high consistency between nTMS stimulation of the left anterior and posterior language areas and the Wada test results for determining language HD. In contrast, the consistency of stimulation of the right anterior and posterior transfer sites was moderate (Kappa value = 0.545, P = 0.171) and low, respectively. For the latter, no statistical calculation was performed because stimulation of the right posterior speech area was negative in all patients compared with the Wada test results. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings revealed that using nTMS to stimulate language-related left anterior and posterior areas could predict language HD with high accuracy. When the stimulation performance of these areas is positive, nTMS and the Wada test are equally accurate. Observing only negative performance may indicate that language HD has been transferred to the right side.

The diagnostic value of pain evoked potential by electrical stimulation combined with noceciptive blink reflex in trigeminal neuralgia.

Microvascular decompression is the first choice for treating the primary trigeminal neuralgia to provide the most extended duration of pain freedom. However, in microvascular decompression, we found that this kind of operation is only suitable for some patients. It is of great value to objectively judge the function and abnormality of the trigeminal pain conduction pathway in guiding the operation process. This brief report investigates the value of pain evoked potential by electrical stimulation and noceciptive blink reflex in trigeminal neuralgia. We detected the pain evoked potential in 34 patients with trigeminal neuralgia and 48 healthy controls treated by electrical stimulation and blink reflex. We demonstrated no significant differences in the latencies of V1, V2, V3, and R2 of the affected side and the contralateral side in patients with trigeminal neuralgia. The latencies of those four indicators of the affected side in patients with trigeminal neuralgia were notably decreased compared to those on the same side in healthy controls. The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the area under curve, sensitivity and specificity of the combined diagnosis of latency and amplitude were significantly higher than the single diagnosis. The latency and amplitude of V1 were highly sensitive, while those of V2 was highly specific. Trigeminal neuralgia can be effectively diagnosed by combining pain evoked potential by electrical stimulation and noceciptive blink reflex. The pathogenesis of trigeminal neuralgia should be combined with peripheral pathogenicity and the theory of central pathogenicity.

Effects of altered excitation-inhibition imbalance by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for self-limited epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes.

Objectives: Patients with self-limited epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (SeLECTS) with electrical status epilepticus in sleep (ESES) have generalized cognitive impairment, yet treatment options are limited. Our study aimed to examine the therapeutic effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on SeLECTS with ESES. In addition, we applied electroencephalography (EEG) aperiodic components (offset and slope) to investigate the improvement of rTMS on the excitation-inhibition imbalance (E-I imbalance) in the brain of this group of children. Methods: Eight SeLECTS patients with ESES were included in this study. Low-frequency rTMS (≤1 Hz) was applied for 10 weekdays in each patient. To assess the clinical efficacy and changes in E-I imbalance, EEG recordings were performed both before and after rTMS. Seizure-reduction rate and spike-wave index (SWI) were measured to investigate the clinical effects of rTMS. The aperiodic offset and slope were calculated to explore the effect of rTMS on E-I imbalance. Results: Five of the eight patients (62.5%) were seizure-free within 3 months after stimulation, with treatment effects decreasing with longer follow-ups. The SWI decreased significantly at 3 and 6 months after rTMS compared with the baseline (P = 0.0157 and P = 0.0060, respectively). The offset and slope were compared before rTMS and within 3 months after stimulation. The results showed a significant reduction in the offset after stimulation (P < 0.0001). There was a remarkable increase in slope after the stimulation (P < 0.0001). Conclusion: Patients achieved favorable outcomes in the first 3 months after rTMS. The ameliorative effect of rTMS on SWI may last up to 6 months. Low-frequency rTMS could reduce firing rates in neuronal populations throughout the brain, which was most pronounced at the site of stimulation. A significant reduction in the slope after rTMS treatment suggested an improvement in the E-I imbalance in the SeLECTS.

Machine and deep learning-based clinical characteristics and laboratory markers for the prediction of sarcopenia.

BACKGROUND: Sarcopenia is an age-related progressive skeletal muscle disorder involving the loss of muscle mass or strength and physiological function. Efficient and precise AI algorithms may play a significant role in the diagnosis of sarcopenia. In this study, we aimed to develop a machine learning model for sarcopenia diagnosis using clinical characteristics and laboratory indicators of aging cohorts. METHODS: We developed models of sarcopenia using the baseline data from the West China Health and Aging Trend (WCHAT) study. For external validation, we used the Xiamen Aging Trend (XMAT) cohort. We compared the support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB), and Wide and Deep (W&D) models. The area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) and accuracy (ACC) were used to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of the models. RESULTS: The WCHAT cohort, which included a total of 4057 participants for the training and testing datasets, and the XMAT cohort, which consisted of 553 participants for the external validation dataset, were enrolled in this study. Among the four models, W&D had the best performance (AUC = 0.916 ± 0.006, ACC = 0.882 ± 0.006), followed by SVM (AUC =0.907 ± 0.004, ACC = 0.877 ± 0.006), XGB (AUC = 0.877 ± 0.005, ACC = 0.868 ± 0.005), and RF (AUC = 0.843 ± 0.031, ACC = 0.836 ± 0.024) in the training dataset. Meanwhile, in the testing dataset, the diagnostic efficiency of the models from large to small was W&D (AUC = 0.881, ACC = 0.862), XGB (AUC = 0.858, ACC = 0.861), RF (AUC = 0.843, ACC = 0.836), and SVM (AUC = 0.829, ACC = 0.857). In the external validation dataset, the performance of W&D (AUC = 0.970, ACC = 0.911) was the best among the four models, followed by RF (AUC = 0.830, ACC = 0.769), SVM (AUC = 0.766, ACC = 0.738), and XGB (AUC = 0.722, ACC = 0.749). CONCLUSIONS: The W&D model not only had excellent diagnostic performance for sarcopenia but also showed good economic efficiency and timeliness. It could be widely used in primary health care institutions or developing areas with an aging population. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Chictr.org, ChiCTR 1800018895.

The characteristics and alteration of peripheral immune function in patients with multiple system atrophy.

Objective: Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a degenerative disease. Immune dysfunction found to play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of this disease in the literature, while the characteristics of peripheral immune function remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics and alterations of peripheral immune function in patients with MSA. Methods: A case-control study was conducted between January 2021 to December 2022 at SanBo Brain Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China. A total of 74 participants were recruited, including 47 MSA patients and 27 non-MSA participants. Peripheral blood samples were collected from each participant. A total of 29 types of immune cells were measured using the flow cytometry analysis technology. Single-factor analysis and multiple-factor analysis (multiple linear regression models) were performed to determine the differences and risk factors in immune cells between the MSA and non-MSA groups. Results: Alterations of the count or percentage of CD19+ B lymphocytes and CD3-CD56+ B lymphocytes in MSA patients were found in this study. The reductions of the count and percentage of CD19+ B lymphocytes were still robust after adjusting for variables of age, gender, body mass index, albumin, and hemoglobin. Furthermore, the reductions in the count and percentage of CD19+ B lymphocytes in the MSA patients were more significant in women and individuals aged 60 years old or above than in the non-MSA participants. Conclusion: Our findings suggested that MSA patients may be influenced by B lymphocytes, particularly CD19+ cells. Therefore, the reductions in immune cells should be considered in the diagnosis and treatment of MSA. Further studies are warranted to confirm and expand upon these findings.

Identification of the epileptogenic zone of temporal lobe epilepsy from stereo-electroencephalography signals: A phase transfer entropy and graph theory approach.

The aim of this research is to apply an approach based on phase transfer entropy (PTE) and graph theory to study the interactions between the stereo-electroencephalography (SEEG) activities recorded in multilobar origin, in order to evaluate their ability to detect the epileptogenic zone (EZ) of temporal lobe epilepsies (TLE). Forty-three patients were included in this retrospective study. Five to sixteen (median = 12) multilead electrodes were implanted per patient, and, for each patient, a sub-set of between 10 and 32 (median = 22) bipolar derivations was selected for analysis. The leads were classified into the onset leads (OLs), the early propagation leads (EPLs), and the rest of the leads (RLs). The results showed that a significantly different dynamic trend of the out/in ratio (more obvious in the gamma band) distinguishes the OLs from RLs in the 23 patients who were seizure-free not only during the ictal event (significant elevation), but also during the inter-,pre-, late-ictal periods, and especially in the post-ictal (sharp decline) state. However, in the 20 patients who were not-seizure-free, the differences between the OLs and RLs during the post-ictal period were not found in any frequency band. The dynamic trend was used to predict surgical outcome, and the results showed that the sensitivity was 91% and the specificity was 70%. In brief, this study indicates that our approach may add new and valuable information, providing efficient quantitative measures useful for localizing the EZ.