Explore the vast range of titles available.

The gut microbiota is the largest symbiotic ecosystem with the host and has been proven to play an important role in maintaining the stability of the intestinal environment. The imbalance of the gut microbiota is caused by the imbalance between the symbiotic microbiota and the pathogenic microbiota. The commensal microbiome regulates intestinal motility, while the pathogenic microbiome causes intestinal motility disorder, resulting in disease development. Intestinal motility is a relatively general term, and its meaning may include intestinal muscle contraction, intestinal wall biomechanics, intestinal compliance, and transmission. The role of intestinal microecology and intestinal motility are interrelated, intestinal flora disorder mediates intestinal motility, and abnormal intestinal motility affects colonization of the intestinal flora. In this review, we briefly outlined the interaction between gut microbiota and intestinal motility and provided a reference for future studies.

Recently, deep learning technologies have rapidly expanded into medical image analysis, including both disease detection and classification. As far as we know, migraine is a disabling and common neurological disorder, typically characterized by unilateral, throbbing and pulsating headaches. Unfortunately, a large number of migraineurs do not receive the accurate diagnosis when using traditional diagnostic criteria based on the guidelines of the International Headache Society. As such, there is substantial interest in developing automated methods to assist in the diagnosis of migraine. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have evaluated the potential of deep learning technologies in assisting with the classification of migraine patients. Here, we used deep learning methods in combination with three functional measures (the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations, regional homogeneity and regional functional correlation strength) based on rs-fMRI data to distinguish not only between migraineurs and healthy controls, but also between the two subtypes of migraine. We employed 21 migraine patients without aura, 15 migraineurs with aura, and 28 healthy controls. Compared with the traditional support vector machine classifier, which has an accuracy of 83.67%, our Inception module-based convolutional neural network approach showed a significant improvement in classification output (over 86.18%). Our data also indicate that the Inception module-based CNN performs better than the AlexNet-based CNN (Inception module-based CNN reached an accuracy of 99.25%). Finally, we also found that regional functional correlation strength (RFCS) could be regarded as the optimum input out of the three indices (ALFF, ReHo, RFCS). Overall, our study shows that combining the three functional measures of rs-fMRI with deep learning classification is a powerful method to distinguish between migraineurs and healthy individuals. Our data also highlight that deep learning-based frameworks could be used to develop more complicated models or systems to aid in clinical decision making in the future.

Research Summary: Platform owners sometimes enter complementors' product spaces and compete against them. Using data from Amazon.com to study Amazon's entry pattern into third-party sellers' product spaces, we find that Amazon is more likely to target successful product spaces. We also find that Amazon is less likely to enter product spaces that require greater seller efforts to grow, suggesting that complementors' platform-specific investments influence platform owners' entry decisions. While Amazon's entry discourages affected third-party sellers from subsequently pursuing growth on the platform, it increases product demand and reduces shipping costs for consumers. We consider the implications of these findings for complementors in platform-based markets. Managerial Summary: Platform owners can exert considerable influence over their complementors' welfare. Many complementors with successful products are pushed out of markets because platform owners enter their product spaces and compete directly with them. To mitigate such risks, complementors could build their businesses by aggregating nonblockbuster products or focusing on products requiring significant platform-specific investments to grow. They should also develop capabilities in new product discovery so that they could continually bring innovative products to their platforms.

We investigate the effect of competition on price dispersion in the airline industry. Using panel data from 1993 to 2008, we find a nonmonotonic effect of competition on price dispersion. An increase in competition is associated with greater price dispersion in concentrated markets but with less price dispersion in competitive markets—an inverse-U relationship. Our empirical findings are consistent with an oligopolistic second-degree price discrimination model and encompass contradictory findings in the literature.

In this study, the self-extracted constipation treatment of traditional Chinese medicine extracts was applied to constipated rats. To explore the mechanism and role of the Chinese medicine for the treatment of constipation, the 16S rRNA sequencing and qRT-PCR technology were used to analyze the intestinal flora. We found that the relative abundance of Firmicutes with constipation was significantly higher accounted for 86.7%, while the gut microbiota was significantly changed after taking a certain dose of Chinese medicine, greatly increased the relative abundance of Lactobacillus accounted for 23.1%, enhanced the symbiotic relationships of Lactobacillus with other intestinal flora . The total copies of intestinal bacteria in the constipated rats decreased after taking the traditional Chinese medicine. Finally, this study results provides a theoretical basis for the treatment and understand the mechanism and effect of traditional Chinese medicine on rate constipation.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with a multi-strain probiotic (MSP) product containing of Bifidobacterium animalis, Lactobacillus casei, Streptococcus faecalis, and Bacillus cerevisiae on growth, health, and fecal bacterial composition of dairy calves during the first month of life.Methods: Forty Holstein calves (24 female and 16 male) at 2 d of age were grouped by sex and date of birth then randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatments: milk replacer supplementation with 0 g (0MSP), 2 g (2MSP), 4 g (4MSP), and 6 g (6MSP) MSP per calf per day.Results: Supplementation of MSP did not result in any significant differences in parameters of body measurements of calves during the 30 d period. As the dosage of MSP increased, the average daily gain (p = 0.025) and total dry matter intake (p = 0.020) of calves showed a linear increase. The fecal consistency index of the 2MSP, 4MSP, and 6MSP group calves were lower than that of the 0MSP group calves (p = 0.003). As the dosage of MSP increased, the concentrations of lactate dehydrogenase (p = 0.068) and aspartate aminotransferase (p = 0.081) in serum tended to decrease, whereas the concentration of total cholesterol increased quadratically (p = 0.021). The relative abundance of Dorea in feces was lower (p = 0.011) in the 2MSP, 4MSP, and 6MSP group calves than that in the 0MSP group calves. The relative abundance of Dorea (p = 0.001), Faecalibacterium (p = 0.050), and Mitsuokella (p = 0.030) decreased linearly, whereas the relative abundance of Prevotella tended to increase linearly as the dosage of MSP increased (p = 0.058).Conclusion: The MSP product can be used to reduce the diarrhea, improve the performance, and alter the composition of the fecal bacteria in neonatal dairy calves under the commercial conditions.

Three-Strain Probiotic Combination (Golden Bifid), a probiotic formulation composed of Bifidobacterium longum , Lactobacillus bulgaricus , and Streptococcus thermophilus , is widely used to modulate gut microbiota homeostasis and treat various gastrointestinal disorders. However, the specific molecular mechanisms underlying its therapeutic effects in slow transit constipation (STC) remain incompletely understood. In this study, we demonstrated that Golden Bifid alleviates loperamide-induced constipation by coordinately modulating host transcriptomic profiles, particularly the MAPK and serotonin signaling pathways, and restoring gut microbiota composition and diversity. These multi-omics findings provide novel mechanistic insights into the clinical efficacy of this probiotic combination, which have not been previously elucidated. Using a loperamide (LOP)-induced STC rat model, Golden Bifid was shown significantly increase defecation frequency, fecal water content, and intestinal motility, while improving the pathological damage of colonic tissues. It also elevated the protein expression of c-kit, 5-HT, 5-HT3R, and 5-HT4R in colonic tissue. RNA sequencing identified 1,998 differentially expressed transcripts in Golden Bifid group compared with the LOP group, with 899 upregulated and 1,099 downregulated. These transcripts were enriched in pathways, such as the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and estrogen signaling pathway. Additionally, 16S rDNA sequencing demonstrated that the Golden Bifid partially restored gut microbiota structure, increased microbial diversity, and reversed the dysbiosis induced by LOP, notably reducing the abundance of Patescibacteria and modulating microbial taxa at both the phylum and genus levels to resemble the gut microbiota composition of the control group. These findings suggest that Golden Bifid alleviate STC by enhancing c-kit and 5-HT signaling, modulating the MAPK signaling pathway and pathway and restoring gut microbiota balance, offering promising therapeutic potential for STC treatment.

Background Coccidiosis, a prominent intestinal protozoan disease, carries significant economic implications for the poultry industry. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of Fengqiang Shengtai (BLES), a probiotics product, and coccidiosis vaccine in modulating the intestinal microbiome and providing insight into mitigating the occurrence and management of avian coccidiosis. Methods Broilers included in the study were divided into four pre-treatment groups: the Pre-Con group (commercial diet), Pre-BLES group (BLES supplement), Pre-Vac group (coccidiosis vaccination) and Pre-Vac-BLES group (combined vaccination and BLES). Body weight gain, feed consumption and feed conversion ratio were monitored from age 25 to 55 days. Cecum contents were collected at 8 and 15 days of age for comparative analysis of intestinal microbiomes. In the Pre-BLES and Pre-Vac-BLES groups, probiotics were administered at a dose of 0.01 g per chicken between ages 3 to 6 days and 10–13 days. At 3 days of age, chickens in the Pre-Vac and Pre-Vac-BLES groups were vaccinated with 1700 sporulated oocysts of the live coccidiosis vaccine per chicken. At the age of 25 days, Eimeria spp. challenge experiments were performed based on the aforementioned immunization strategy, and the oocysts per gram (OPG) in the feces, intestinal lesion score and intestinal pathological characteristics were evaluated. Specifically, 30 chickens were randomly selected from each group and orally administered 34,000 sporulated oocysts of Eimeria spp. per chicken, re-defined as Eimeria group, BLES-Eimeria group, Vac-Eimeria group and Vac-BLES-Eimeria group, respectively. Additionally, 30 chickens were randomly selected from the Pre-Con group and included as negative control without Eimeria spp. challenge. Intestinal microbiota was sequenced and analyzed when the broilers were 32 days old. Results A significant improvement was observed in body weight gain of the broilers in the Pre-BLES and Pre-Vac-BLES group at 45 days of age. Analysis of the intestinal microbiota revealed a positive correlation between the experimental groups receiving BLES and coccidiosis vaccines at 8 and 15 days of age with the Enterococcus genus and Lachnospiraceae NK4A136 group, respectively. In addition to the reduced lesion score and OPG values, the combination of coccidiosis vaccine and BLES also reduced the intestinal epithelial abscission induced by coccidiosis vaccines. The results of intestinal microbial function prediction demonstrated that N-glycan biosynthesis and ferroptosis were the prominent signal pathways in the Vac-BLES-Eimeria group. Conclusions Taken together, the results of the present study suggest that supplementation of BLES with coccidiosis vaccine represents a promising strategy for improving growth performance, alleviating clinical manifestations and inducing favorable alterations to the intestinal microbiota in broiler chickens affected by coccidiosis.

Background and purpose: According to reports, type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a progressive disease. However, no known research has examined the progressive brain structural changes associated with T2D. The purpose of this study was to determine whether T2D patients exhibit progressive brain structural alterations and, if so, how the alterations progress. Materials and methods: Structural magnetic resonance imaging scans were collected for 81 T2D patients and 48 sex-and age-matched healthy controls (HCs). Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and causal structural covariance network (CaSCN) analyses were applied to investigate gray matter volume (GMV) alterations and the likely chronological processes underlying them in T2D. Two sample t-tests were performed to compare group differences, and the differences were corrected using Gaussian random field (GRF) correction (voxel-level p < 0.001, cluster-level p < 0.01). Results: Our findings demonstrated that GMV alterations progressed in T2D patients as disease duration increased. In the early stages of the disease, the right temporal pole of T2D patients had GMV atrophy. As the diseases duration prolonged, the limbic system, cerebellum, subcortical structures, parietal cortex, frontal cortex, and occipital cortex progressively exhibited GMV alterations. The patients also exhibited a GMV alterations sequence exerting from the right temporal pole to the limbic-cerebellum-striatal-cortical network areas. Conclusion: Our results indicate that the progressive GMV alterations of T2D patients manifested a limbic-cerebellum-striatal-cortical sequence. These findings may contribute to a better understanding of the progression and an improvement of current diagnosis and intervention strategies for T2D.

Raised erosive gastritis (REG) is a chronic gastritis with a high risk of malignant transformation. Current treatments often result in high recurrence rates and complications. Jianpi Qinghua Sanyu Yin (JPQHSYY), a traditional Chinese medicine, shows promise in treating REG. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the potential mechanism of JPQHSYY's therapeutic effects on REG. RNA-seq was employed to systematically analyze mRNA, lncRNA, and miRNA profiles in gastric mucosal tissues from REG patients before and after JPQHSYY treatment. The pivotal lncRNA-miRNA and miRNA-mRNA networks were predicted from sequencing data and bioinformatic analysis, and the results were exported using Cytoscape software. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were used for functional exploration. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was performed to validate RNA-seq analysis results. CCK8, cell cycle, apoptosis and western blot were performed to detect the effects of miR-122-5p in GES-1 cells . RNA-seq analysis revealed 576 differentially expressed lncRNAs (269 upregulated, 307 downregulated), 33 differentially expressed miRNAs (13 upregulated, 20 downregulated), and 1717 differentially expressed mRNAs (777 upregulated, 940 downregulated) in JPQHSYY-treated REG patients. GO and KEGG analyses highlighted key pathways, including the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway, involved in cell cycle and apoptosis regulation. The ceRNA network analysis suggested that JPQHSYY impacts the miRNA-lncRNA interactions. Validation experiments confirmed that JPQHSYY inhibits the PI3K/AKT pathway, reducing cell viability, colony formation, and promoting apoptosis in miR-122-5p transfected GES-1 cells. The therapeutic efficacy of JPQHSYY in treating REG might be mediated by the ceRNA-driven PI3K/AKT pathway signaling pathways, which is implicated in the proliferation of gastric mucosal epithelial cells. Furthermore, the investigation of miRNA-lncRNA networks could reveal more information on potential new mechanisms and targets for JPQHSYY in the management of REG.