Dexmedetomidine nasal administration improves perioperative sleep quality and neurocognitive deficits in elderly patients undergoing general anesthesia.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the improvement of perioperative sleep quality and neurocognitive impairment in elderly patients under general anesthesia by nasal administration of dexmedetomidine. METHODS: One hundred and twenty patients admitted to our hospital for various laparoscopic elective gynecological surgeries lasting more than 1 h under general anesthesia from July 2021 to March 2023 were selected. All subjects were divided into 3 groups according to the random number table method. From 21:00 to 21:30 every night from one day before to 5 days after surgery, group A was given alprazolam 0.4 mg orally; group B was given dexmedetomidine 1.5ug/kg nasal drip; group C was given saline nasal drip. All subjects were observed for general information, sleep quality, postoperative cognitive function, anxiety status, sleep quality, adverse effects and complication occurrence. RESULTS: The difference in general information between the three groups was not statistically significant, P > 0.05; the sleep quality scores of the three groups on admission were not statistically significant, P > 0.05. At the Preoperative 1d, postoperative 1d, 3d and 5d, the RCSQ scores of the subjects in group A and group B were higher than those in groups C, and with the postoperative RCSQ scores of subjects in group B were higher as the time increased; the assessment of anxiety status in the three groups 1d before surgery was not statistically significant, P > 0.05. The cognitive function scores of subjects in the three groups were not statistically significant in the preoperative 1d, P > 0.05. The postoperative 1d (24.63 ± 2.23), 3d (25.83 ± 2.53), and 5d (26.15 ± 2.01) scores of the subjects in group B were higher than those in groups A and C (P < 0.05), and the subjects in group B had better recovery of postoperative cognitive function with increasing time; the occurrence of postoperative delirium (POD) in group B (12.5%) were lower on postoperative 5d than those in groups A (37.5%) and C (32.5%) (P < 0.05). There was no statistical significance in the evaluation of anxiety state of the three groups on the first day before operation (P > 0.05). The scores in group B were lower than those in group C on the postoperative 1d, 3d, 5 d (P < 0.05). The overall incidence of adverse reactions and complications in subjects in group B was 17.5% significantly lower than that in groups A and C (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Dexmedetomidine can effectively improve the sleep disorder of elderly general anesthesia patients, reduce the damage to their neurocognitive function and the occurrence of POD, effectively reduce the anxiety of patients and the occurrence of adverse reactions and complications, and has better sedative, improve postoperative cognitive function and anti-anxiety effects, with a high drug safety, worthy of clinical application and promotion.

The analgesic effects of dezocine in rats with chronic constriction injuries.

Neuropathic pain (NP) is caused by diseases or dysfunction of nervous system and has a considerable negative impact on patients' quality of life. Opioid analgesics can be used for NP treatment. However, the effect of dezocine on NC remains unknown. In this study, we aimed to investigate the analgesic and intestinal effects of various doses of dezocine in rats with chronic constriction injuries (CCI). 100 rats were equally divided into 5 groups: the low (D1 group), medium (D2 group), and high (D3 group) doses of dezocine, and sham operation and model groups. The effects of dezocine on pain, analgesic effect, pain response, and tension and contraction frequencies of intestinal smooth muscles were assessed. With an increase in the dezocine dosage, the cumulative pain scores of rats decreased and analgesic effect significantly increased; mechanical withdrawal threshold (MWT) and thermal withdrawal latency (TWL) improved in varying degrees. The expression of the NP-related proteins glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and connexin 43 (Cx43) was also improved by dezocine treatment. The results of western blot and ELISA showed that IL-6, and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) levels also decreased significantly with an increase in the dezocine dose, indicated that dezocine alleviated the inflammatory microenvironment. The dezocine exhibited no significant effect on the tension or contraction frequencies of intestinal smooth muscles of rats. In conclusion, the analgesic effect of dezocine on rats with CCI is dose-dependent and has little effect on the tension or contraction frequencies of intestinal smooth muscles. Our research proved the analgesic effect of dezocine in rats with CCI, and provided further insights into new therapies for NP treatment.

An Influence Maximization Algorithm for Dynamic Social Networks Based on Effective Links.

The connection between users in social networks can be maintained for a certain period of time, and the static network structure formed provides the basic conditions for various kinds of research, especially for discovering customer groups that can generate great influence, which is important for product promotion, epidemic prevention and control, and public opinion supervision, etc. However, the computational process of influence maximization ignores the timeliness of interaction behaviors among users, the screened target users cannot diffuse information well, and the time complexity of relying on greedy rules to handle the influence maximization problem is high. Therefore, this paper analyzes the influence of the interaction between nodes in dynamic social networks on information dissemination, extends the classical independent cascade model to a dynamic social network dissemination model based on effective links, and proposes a two-stage influence maximization solution algorithm (Outdegree Effective Link-OEL) based on node degree and effective links to enhance the efficiency of problem solving. In order to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm, five typical influence maximization methods are compared and analyzed on four real data sets. The results show that the OEL algorithm has good performance in propagation range and running time.

Analgesia effect of lentivirus-siSCN9A infected neurons in vincristine induced neuropathic pain rats.

At present, the mechanism of siSCN9A in Vincristine (VCR)-induced neuropathic pain (NP) is still unclear. This study aimed to explore the analgesic mechanism of lentivirus-siSCN9A (LV-siSCN9A) infected neurons against NP. 40 male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were divided into a control group (injected with normal saline), a model group (VCR-induced NP model), a LV-SC group (NP model mice were injected with LV-SC-infected dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neuron cells under the microscope), and a LV-siSCN9A group (NP model mice were injected with LV-siSCN9A-infected DRG neuron cells under the microscope, with 10 rats in each group. The changes of mechanical withdrawal threshold (MWT) and thermal withdrawal latency (TWL) of rats in different groups were detected by behavior testing, the Nav1.7 changes in each group were detected by immunofluorescence double standard and Western-blot method. It was found that compared with the control group, the MWT and TWL of the rats in model group were significantly decreased (P < 0.05), and the expression levels of Nav1.7 messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) and proteins were significantly increased (P < 0.05). Compared with LV-SC group, the MWT and TWL of rats in LV-siSCN9A group were significantly increased (P < 0.05), the expression levels of Nav1.7 mRNA and proteins were significantly decreased (P < 0.05), and the CGRP expression of spinal dorsal horn was significantly decreased. It was concluded that the LV-siSCN9A infected neurons could play an analgesic role by down-regulating Nav1.7 expression induced by VCR in NP model.

Sevoflurane postconditioning affects post-ischaemic myocardial mitochondrial ATP-sensitive potassium channel function and apoptosis in ageing rats.

This study investigated the effect of sevoflurane postconditioning on post-ischaemic cardiac function, infarct size, myocardial mitochondrial ATP-sensitive potassium channel (mitoKATP) function and apoptosis in ageing rats to determine the possible mechanism underlying the cardioprotective property of sevoflurane. Ageing rat hearts were isolated and attached to a Langendorff apparatus. The hearts were then exposed or not to sevoflurane postconditioning in the presence or absence of 100 µmol/L 5-hydroxydecanoate (5-HD), a selective mitoKATP inhibitor. The infarct size was measured by triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining. Mitochondrial morphology was observed by electron microscopy and scored using FlaMeng semiquantitative analysis. In addition, the expression levels of Bax, Bcl-2, and cytochrome-C (Cyt-C) were determined by Western blot analysis at the end of reperfusion. Sevoflurane postconditioning increased coronary flow, improved functional recovery, reduced Bax/Bcl-2 and Cyt-C phosphorylation levels, and decreased mitochondrial lesion severity and the extent of apoptosis. The protective effects of sevoflurane postconditioning were prevented by the mitoKATP inhibitor 5-HD. Sevoflurane postconditioning significantly protected the function of ageing hearts that were subjected to ischaemia and reperfusion, and these protective effects were mediated by mitoKATP opening.

Analgesic effect of intrathecally γ-aminobutyric acid transporter-1 inhibitor NO-711 administrating on neuropathic pain in rats.

To investigate the analgesic effect of intrathecally administered γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) transporter-1 inhibitor NO-711 on the sciatic nerve chronic constriction injury (CCI) rats. 5 days after intrathecal catheter placement, neuropathic pain model was established by CCI of sciatic nerve on rats. Withdrawal thresholds for mechanical allodynia and latency for thermal hyperalgesia were measured in all animals. All rats operated upon for CCI displayed decreased withdrawal thresholds for mechanical allodynia and latency for thermal hyperalgesia, which has significant difference compared with sham groups. After intrathecal NO-711 administration, withdrawal thresholds and latency were significantly increased on CCI rats compared with control group after 1 day. The results show that GABA transporter-1 inhibitor could effectively develop analgesic effect in sciatic nerve CCI rats' model.