Effort has been made to find biomarkers for vascular dementia (VaD). Nevertheless, current findings are typically obtained through statistical tests of group level differences. In clinical practice, however, it is more common to perform individual level inferences, e.g., to determine if a subject is suffering from VaD, which can not be resolved with statistical analysis. The goal of this study is to develop a method to effectively discriminate early VaD patients from normal controls by combining EEG features with machine learning methods. EEG signals were recorded from 15 VaD patients and 21 controls during a visual oddball task. Interregional directed connectivity was derived from directed transfer function (DTF) analysis and used as features in classification. Three machine learning methods, including linear discriminant analyais (LDA), error back-propagation (BP) neural network and support vector machine (SVM), were used as classifiers, and their classification performance was compared. It was found that VaD patients can be effectively identified using BP and SVM classifiers with high accuracy. In particular, when SVM classifier was combined with feature selection by Fisher score, it reached an accuracy 86.11%, sensitivity 86.67% and specificity 85.71%. The area under curve (AUC, 0.854) indicates a good identification of VaD patients from the normal controls. Since EEG is noninvasive, inexpensive and widely avaliable to use, the current study presents a novel clinical application of machine learning methods, and could facilitate automatic screening and diagnosis of VaD at an early stage in future.

Objective: The study objective was to investigate whether Z-guggulsterone can relieve neuropathic pain in sciatic nerve chronic constriction injury (CCI) mice by inhibiting the expression of astrocytes and proinflammatory cytokines in the spinal dorsal horn. Methods: Neuropathic pain was induced and assessed in CCI mice. Z-guggulsterone was administered multiple times via intraperitoneal injection. Pain behaviour assessments were made by conducting paw withdrawal mechanical threshold (PWMT) and thermal withdrawal latency (TWL) tests. The expression level of the glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in the spinal dorsal horn was observed by immunofluorescence. The levels of the proinflammatory cytokines, IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α in the spinal cord were measured by ELISA. Data were analysed using one-way ANOVA or two-way ANOVA. Results: The PWMT and TWL were higher on the 5th, 7th, 10th and 14th days after CCI, the expression level of GFAP in the spinal dorsal horn was lower, and the levels of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α in the spinal cord were lower in the CCI+Z-GS-L, CCI+Z-GS-M and CCI+Z-GS-H groups than in the CCI+Veh group in a dose-dependent manner (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Z-guggulsterone can relieve neurological pain in CCI mice, which may be related to the inhibition of astrocytes and proinflammatory cytokines in the spinal dorsal horn.

Objective: The study objective was to compare the efficacy and safety of percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) combined with facet joint block (FB) and vertebroplasty alone in relieving acute pain on osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs). Methods: A prospective, randomized controlled study was conducted. One hundred ninety-eight patients of OVCFs undergoing surgery were randomly divided into two groups: Group P (PVP, n = 97), Group PF (PVP + FB, n = 101). The Visual analogue scale (VAS) and Oswestry disability index (ODI) were measured during pre-operation, 1 day, 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after the operation, respectively. The hospitalization time, operation time, complications, recurrence, the mean amount of cement injected and the number of patients who applied Cox-2 inhibitors within 3 days after operation were compared in the two groups. Results: The VAS and ODI scores at each observation point of the post-operation were significantly decreased than that at the pre-operation in both groups (P < 0.05). The VAS and ODI scores in Group PF were significantly lower than that in Group P 1 day and 1 month after the operation (P < 0.05). The number of patients who applied Cox-2 inhibitors within 3 days after operation in group PF was significantly lower that in Group P (P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in hospitalization time, operation time, the mean amount of cement injected, complication rate, VAS and ODI scores at the pre-operation (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Both PVP combined with FB and PVP alone are effective treatment methods for OVCFs. But PVP combined with FB showed better back pain relief than PVP alone in the short term after the operation for OVCFs.