Alzheimer's disease with depressive symptoms: Clinical effect of intermittent theta burst stimulation repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease (AD), characterized by the ongoing deterioration of neural function, often presents alongside depressive features and greatly affects the quality of life of individuals living with the condition. Although several treatment methods exist, their efficacy is limited. In recent years, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) utilizing the theta burst stimulation (TBS) mode, specifically the intermittent TBS (iTBS), has demonstrated promising therapeutic potential in the management of neuropsychiatric disorders. AIM: To examine the therapeutic efficacy of iTBS mode of rTMS for treating depressive symptoms in patients with AD. METHODS: This retrospective study enrolled 105 individuals diagnosed with AD with depressive symptoms at Huzhou Third Municipal Hospital, affiliated with Huzhou University, between January 2020 and December 2023. Participants received standard pharmacological interventions and were categorized into control (n = 53) and observation (n = 52) groups based on treatment protocols. The observation group received iTBS mode of rTMS, while the control group received pseudo-stimulation. A comparative analysis evaluated psychological well-being, adverse events, and therapeutic at initiation of hospitalization (T0) and 15 days post-treatment (T1). RESULTS: At T1, both groups exhibited a marked reduction in self-rating depression scale and Hamilton depression scale scores compared to T0. Furthermore, the observation group showed a more pronounced decrease than the control group. By T1, the Mini-mental state examination scores for both groups had increased markedly from their initial T0 assessments. Importantly, the increase was particularly more substantial in the observation group than in the control group. Fourteen patients in the control group had ineffective treatment effects, while five patients in the observation group experienced the same. Additionally, the observation group experienced a substantially reduced incidence of ineffective treatment as compared to the control group (both P < 0.05); there were no recorded serious adverse events in either group. CONCLUSION: The iTBS model of rTMS effectively treated AD with depression, improving depressive symptoms and cognitive function in patients without serious adverse reactions, warranting clinical consideration.

Rapid screening and target-guided isolation of antioxidants from German chamomile by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl-ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry coupled with off-line two-dimensional high-speed countercurrent chromatography.

German chamomile is one of the most effective herbal elements used in anti-allergic products and as an antioxidant. Herein, the antioxidant activity of different extract fractions of German chamomile was initially evaluated using an off-line 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl spectrophotometric assay. The ethyl acetate extract demonstrated the highest efficacy in scavenging free radicals. Based on this, a rapid screening and separation method using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography combined with the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay was implemented to identify antioxidants in the ethyl acetate fraction of German chamomile flowers. Ten potential radical scavengers were tentatively screened from German chamomile using a target-guided isolating approach with off-line two-dimensional high-speed countercurrent chromatography and the structures of the compounds were analyzed and identified. Ultimately, 10 radical scavengers were obtained from the ethyl acetate extract with a purity quotient exceeding 90%. The results demonstrated the effectiveness and reproducibility of this method for isolating potential antioxidants from complex mixtures in a targeted manner. This strategy can be applied to the target-guided isolation of complex mixtures of natural products with broad K-values and similar structures.

Clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol-dependent patients: an observation with the WeChat platform.

BACKGROUND: With the continuous improvement of people's material living standards, the consumption of alcoholic beverages is increasing. Alcohol dependence caused by alcohol addiction has become a widespread concern in society. As the brand-new medical and health model created by the modern biomedical technology revolution and the information technology revolution, mobile health has been used more and more widely in the field of medical health with the characteristics of convenience, rapidity and generalisability. With the general use of the social software WeChat, it is feasible to implement mobile health on the WeChat platform. AIM: We aimed to explore the clinical effect of WeChat platform used in the cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) on the maintenance period of alcohol dependence and addiction. METHODS: Seventy alcohol-dependent patients in the withdrawal maintenance stage admitted into our hospital were randomly divided into the CBT on WeChat platform group (the experiment group, n=35) and the general clinical treatment using sertraline group (the control group, n=35) with block randomisation grouping. They were evaluated with the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire (SADQ-C) before the treatment, at the end of the fourth week, at the end of the eighth week and at the end of the twelfth week of treatment. In addition, Zung's Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were employed to evaluate the degree of anxiety and depression of the two groups. RESULTS: The SADQ-C, SAS and SDS scores of the two groups after treatment decreased markedly compared with those before treatments, and the differences were statistically significant. Between-group comparison: the SADQ-C scores of the experiment group at the end of the fourth, eighth and twelfth weeks were lower than those of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant, which indicated that the score reduction in the experiment group was larger than that in the control group. The SAS and SDS scores of the experiment group at these time points were not significantly different from those of the control group, which indicated that these two treatment methods were comparable in treating patients' anxiety and depression. CONCLUSION: The CBT intervention using WeChat may improve the subjectively reported severity of alcohol dependence of patients who had completed detoxification. It is conducive to prevention of relapse, and is convenient for patients. It is worthy of clinical application and further study.

Recovery of valuable metals from LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 cathode materials of spent Li-ion batteries using mild mixed acid as leachant.

A novel hydrometallurgical process for recycling LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 cathode materials harvested from spent Li-ion batteries (LIBs) is established in this work. The cathode material LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 is dissolved in a mixed acid containing phosphoric acid (leaching agent) and citric acid (leaching agent and reductant). Using 0.2 M phosphoric acid and 0.4 M citric acid with a solid to liquid (S/L) ratio of 20 g/L at 90 °C for 30 min, the proposed method results in a leaching efficiency of ca. 100% for Li, 93.38% for Ni, 91.63% for Co, and 92.00% for Mn, respectively. Kinetics of the leaching process is well described by the Avrami equation. It is found that the leaching process is controlled by surface chemical reactions, and the apparent activation energies (kJ/mol) are 45.83 for Li, 83.01 for Ni, 81.38 for Co and 92.35 for Mn, respectively. With aids of various advanced characterizations methods, including UV-Vis, FT-IR and TOC, we find that there are a great deal of citrates and a small amount of dihydrogen phosphates in the mixed acid leachate. This leaching method enjoys advantages of low acid consumption, short leaching time and no need to add extra reductant.

Sustainable recovery of valuable metals from spent lithium-ion batteries using DL-malic acid: Leaching and kinetics aspect.

An eco-friendly and benign process has been investigated for the dissolution of Li, Co, Ni, and Mn from the cathode materials of spent LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2 batteries, using DL-malic acid as the leaching agent in this study. The leaching efficiencies of Li, Co, Ni, and Mn can reach about 98.9%, 94.3%, 95.1%, and 96.4%, respectively, under the leaching conditions of DL-malic acid concentration of 1.2 M, hydrogen peroxide content of 1.5 vol.%, solid-to-liquid ratio of 40 g l-1, leaching temperature of 80°C, and leaching time of 30 min. In addition, the leaching kinetic was investigated based on the shrinking model and the results reveal that the leaching reaction is controlled by chemical reactions within 10 min with activation energies (Ea) of 21.3 kJ·mol-1, 30.4 kJ·mol-1, 27.9 kJ·mol-1, and 26.2 kJ·mol-1 for Li, Co, Ni, and Mn, respectively. Diffusion process becomes the controlled step with a prolonged leaching time from 15 to 30 min, and the activation energies (Ea) are 20.2 kJ·mol-1, 28.9 kJ·mol-1, 26.3 kJ·mol-1, and 25.0 kJ·mol-1 for Li, Co, Ni, and Mn, respectively. This hydrometallurgical route was found to be effective and environmentally friendly for leaching metals from spent lithium batteries.