Background Gastrointestinal functional recovery is an important factor affecting postoperative outcome. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) on gastrointestinal function in women undergoing cesarean section. Methods 150 pregnant women undergoing cesarean section were randomly allocated into TEAS, nonacupoint stimulation (sham group), and no stimulation (control group). The primary outcome was indications of gastrointestinal functional recovery and the secondary outcomes included time to first mobilization, postoperative hospital stay, daily living activities at one week after surgery, postoperative side-effects, and serum levels of gastroenterological hormones. Results The time to first flatus in TEAS group was significantly shorter compared to control (P=0.004) and sham groups (P=0.003). The time to first oral liquid and solid intake was significantly shorter than that in control (P<0.001; P=0.021) and sham group (P=0.019; P=0.037). Besides, postoperative hospital stay was shorter in TEAS group than in control group (P=0.031) and sham group (P<0.001). TEAS also promoted daily living activities (P=0.001 versus control group and P=0.015 versus sham group). Postoperative complications were similar among all the groups except for the incidence of abdominal distention 24 h after surgery (P=0.013; P=0.040). The motilin level was increased by TEAS (P=0.014 versus control group and P=0.020 versus sham group). Conclusion TEAS accelerated gastrointestinal functional recovery after cesarean section, by reducing postoperative hospital length, and improved daily living activities after surgery. This effect was partially mediated by regulation of the gastroenterological hormones.

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Serology is the mainstay for syphilis treatment monitoring. Baseline rapid plasma reagin (RPR) titre, HIV status, and syphilis stage have been found to be associated with the time to serological response among syphilis patients. This study mainly aims to evaluate the time to serological response, and to identify factors affecting the serological outcome. Medical records of syphilis cases diagnosed in Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) between 2008 and 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Kaplan–Meier analysis was performed to evaluate the median time to serologic response and cumulative probability of serologic response over time according to different variables. Cox regression model was conducted to find factors associated with serological response. There were 984 patients diagnosed with primary, secondary, or latent syphilis cases and receiving injections of benzathine penicillin G (BPG) as initial treatment at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) between 2008 and 2018. Finally, data on 571 patients, including 49 (8.6%) primary syphilis, 261 (45.7%) secondary syphilis, and 261 (45.7%) latent syphilis, were used for analysis. It took longer time to achieve serological response for subjects aged ≥45 years than younger individuals (89 days versus 58 days; p=0.008). Males achieved serological response more quickly than females (71 days versus 83 days; p = 0.011). There was a significant difference in the time to serological response according to different syphilis stages ( p < 0.001), with 55 days (95% CI, 43–67 days) for primary, 57 days (95% CI, 51–63 days) for secondary, and 117 days for latent syphilis. In addition, patients with lower baseline RPR titre had longer period to achieve serological response (252 days [95% CI, 129–375 days] for RPR titre ≤1:8, 78 days [95% CI, 63–93 days] for RPR titres from 1:16 to 1:32, and 53 days [95% CI, 49–57 days] for RPR titres ≥1:64, respectively; p<0.001). However, no significant difference in time to serological response to treatment was found according to HIV coinfection status. The result of multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that being older than 45 years with latent syphilis, HIV coinfection, or with baseline RPR titre ≤1:8 was associated with slow response. Among patients followed for at least 1 year or seroreverted, 128 (36.9%) had seroreverted within a year, and 219 (63.1%) still had a positive RPR after 1 year. For multiple logistical regression, being female and HIV coinfection were significantly associated with the failure of seroreversion (OR, 0.42 [95% CI, 0.26–0.68]; p <0.001). This study revealed that younger age, higher initial RPR titre, early syphilis stage, and HIV-negative status were associated with faster serological cure. Female sex, individuals with HIV coinfection, and latent syphilis were significantly associated with the failure of seroreversion.

Recent whole brain mapping projects are collecting large-scale 3D images using powerful and informative modalities, such as STPT, fMOST, VISoR, or MRI. Registration of these multi-dimensional whole-brain images onto a standard atlas is essential for characterizing neuron types and constructing brain wiring diagrams. However, cross-modality image registration is challenging due to intrinsic variations of brain anatomy and artifacts resulted from different sample preparation methods and imaging modalities. We introduced a cross-modality registration method, called mBrainAligner, which uses coherent landmark mapping as well as deep neural networks to align whole mouse brain images to the standard Allen Common Coordinate Framework atlas. We also built a single cell resolution atlas using the fMOST modality, and used our method to generate whole brain map of 3D full single neuron morphology and neuron cell types.