RESUMO
BACKGROUND: To develop doctors with appropriate knowledge of health and diseases, reasonable medical abilities, and a positive attitude toward patients and their families, it is important to reexamine the methods used to educate and train medical school students. To establish which is best for both medical students and professors, the various teaching and learning methodologies must be compared and analyzed. This study attempts to determine the preferred medical education techniques among medical students as well as the caliber of the classes they attend. METHODS: This is a before-and-after study conducted among 480 first- (240) and second-year (240) undergraduate students. Students were divided into three groups. Each group was assigned a teacher who was responsible for teaching four short topics according to the common understanding and knowledge level of both year students in four different ways: traditional blackboard method, offline PowerPoint presentation, online PowerPoint presentation, and online annotative. Application-based learning and self-learning were the other two teaching methods conducted in a monitored environment. An MCQ-based pre- and post-test were taken to assess the improvement, and a feedback form was filled out by each student to assess their perception. To assess long-term retention, a surprise follow-up test was conducted after 15 days. RESULTS: For all the teaching methods except for traditional blackboard and online presentation, there was a significant improvement in the post-test scores as compared to the pre-test scores (p<0.05). Retentivity was more remarkable in online application-based and self-learning methods. 77.2% of the study participants preferred offline presentation as the mode of teaching. CONCLUSION: Retention was found to be highest in self-directed and application-based learning. So, students should be encouraged and motivated for self-study after every lecture, whatever the teaching method used by teachers.
RESUMO
Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is the foremost cause of viral encephalitis in Southeast Asia and Australia leading to approximately 68 000 clinical cases and about 13 600-20 400 deaths annually. Vaccination is not completely sure and safe. Despite this, no specific antiviral has been available or approved for JEV infection yet and treatment is generally symptomatic. Therefore, this study aims to examine the antiviral activity of natural compounds against JEV proteins. The antiviral activity of natural compounds was investigated via molecular docking, cytopathic effect (CPE) inhibition assay, western blotting, and indirect immunofluorescence assay. Physiochemical, pharmacokinetics, and toxicity analysis were evaluated for the safety and efficacy of natural compounds. Network pharmacology-based approaches have been used to study the molecular mechanisms of drug-target interactions. Molecular docking results suggested that the NS5 protein of JEV is the major target for natural compounds. Network pharmacology-based analysis revealed that these drugs majorly target IL6, AKT1, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), and PTGS2 to regulate key immune and inflammatory pathways such as nuclear factor kappa B, PI3K-Akt, and TNF signaling, during JEV infection. Our in vitro results show that among the natural compounds, curcumin provides the highest protection against JEV infection via reducing the JEV-induced CPE (IC50 = 5.90 ± 0.44 µM/mL), and reduces the expression of NS5 protein, IL6, AKT1, TNF-α, and PTGS2. However, other natural compounds also provide protection to some extent but their efficacy is lower compared to curcumin. Therefore, this study shows that natural compounds, mainly curcumin, may offer novel therapeutic avenues for the treatment of JEV via inhibiting key viral proteins and regulating crucial host pathways involved in JEV replication.
