RESUMO
SARS-CoV-2 Omicron led to the most serious outbreak of COVID-19 in Hong Kong in 2022. Under the pressure of a high volume of patients and limited medical resources, Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been extensively used. This is a case-control study of the infected patients that aims to evaluate the effectiveness of CHM using data extracted from the Hong Kong Baptist University Telemedicine Chinese Medicine Centre database. Patients with COVID-19 confirmed by either a rapid antigen test or a polymerase chain reaction who had completed two consultations and taken CHM within 10 days of the first positive test were included in the study (CHM group, [Formula: see text]). The matched control cases were those who did not take CHM within 10 days of the first positive test and were based on age ([Formula: see text] 3 years), vaccine doses ([Formula: see text] 3 doses, or 3 doses), and gender (no-CHM group, [Formula: see text]). The outcomes included the negative conversion time (NCT, primary outcome), total score of individual symptoms, number of the reported symptoms, and individual symptom disappearance rates. The NCT of the CHM group (median days: 7.0, interquartile range: 6.0-8.0) was significantly shorter than that of the no-CHM group (8.0, 7.0-10.5; [Formula: see text]). CHM treatment significantly reduced the total score of individual symptoms ([Formula: see text]) and the number of the reported symptoms ([Formula: see text]) as compared with that of the no-CHM group. Additionally, the symptom disappearance rates of symptoms such as chills, cough, sputum, dry throat, itching throat, headache, chest tightness, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and fatigue were significantly higher in the CHM group than in the no-CHM group. In conclusion, CHM intervention can significantly reduce NCT and COVID-19 symptoms. Chinese medicine can be accurately prescribed based on a telemedical consultation.
RESUMO
The human brain automatically extracts regularities embedded in environmental auditory events. This study investigated the extraction of abstract patterns by measuring mismatch negativity (MMN). Participants watched a silent subtitled movie and ignored a sequence of auditory events comprising frequent standards and rare deviants presented in the background. Tone triplets with varying pitch (first-order property) served as the auditory events. The pitch intervals (interval 1 and interval 2) between the tones in a triplet and the ratio of interval 1 and 2 were considered second- and third-order properties, respectively. Both second- and third-order properties of the standards were kept constant in the mixed patterns block, while only the third-order property was kept constant in the ratio pattern block. Four sets of tone triplets violating the interval and ratio patterns with different deviance levels were presented as deviants in both blocks, and subtracted with physically identical stimuli in a control block to isolate the MMNs. Interval and ratio pattern deviants elicited MMNs in the mixed patterns block while only ratio pattern deviants elicited MMNs in the ratio pattern block. Larger MMNs were elicited by large deviants as compared to small deviants. These results suggest that the change detection system is sensitive to the violation of both second- and third-order abstract patterns. In addition to regularities in the abstract properties of auditory events, regularities in the relationships between abstract properties can also be extracted. This ability plays an important role in music and language perception.