This thesis aims to characterize functions of the secondary somatosensory cortex SII in humans by means of neuromagnetic recordings. It starts with a review of literature about methodological considerations concerning the generation of neuromagnetic fields and how they can be measured and modeled. Then follows a brief overview of the somatosensory system, its receptors, ascending pathways, and ...

BACKGROUND Inflammation may play an important role in cancer progression, and a higher systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) has been reported to be a poor prognostic marker in several malignancies. However, the results of published studies are inconsistent. MATERIALS AND METHODS A systematic review of databases was conducted to search for publications regarding the association between blo...

Background: A systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) based on neutrophil (N), lymphocyte (L), and platelet (P) counts has shown a prognostic impact in several solid tumors. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prognostic role of SII in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients treated with abiraterone post docetaxel. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed...

BACKGROUND Wealth quintiles derived from household asset indices are routinely used for measuring socioeconomic inequalities in the health of women and children in low and middle-income countries. We explore whether the use of wealth deciles rather than quintiles may be advantageous. METHODS We selected 46 countries with available national surveys carried out between 2003 and 2013 and with a ...

High-dose interferon alfa-2b (IFN-α-2b) improves the survival of patients with high-risk melanoma. We aimed to identify baseline peripheral blood biomarkers to predict the outcome of acral melanoma patients treated with IFN-α-2b. Pretreatment baseline parameters and clinical data were assessed in 226 patients with acral melanoma. Relapse-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) were assess...

Exploration of transient Granger causal interactions in neural sources of electrophysiological activities provides deeper insights into brain information processing mechanisms. However, the underlying neural patterns are confounded by time-dependent dynamics, non-stationarity and observational noise contamination. Here we investigate transient Granger causal interactions using source time-serie...

BACKGROUND The effect of rebamipide on repairing intestinal mucosal damage induced by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and its mechanism remain unclear. In this study, we sought to explore the mechanism whereby rebamipide could promote the regeneration of aspirin-induced intestinal mucosal damage. METHODS BALB/c mice were administered aspirin (200 mg/kg/d) for 5 days to induce acute small...

Cortical representations may change when somatosensory input is altered. Here, we investigated the functional consequences of partial "central" deafferentation of the somatosensory cortex due to a lesion of the ventroposterior lateral nucleus (VPL) in patients at a chronic stage after solitary infarction of the thalamus. Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging during electrical inde...

The inflammatory microenvironment plays a critical role in the development and progression of malignancies. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of lymphocyte-related inflammation and immune-based prognostic scores in patients with chordoma after radical resection, including the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte-lymphocyte ra...