BackgroundMicroglia participants to neuronal loss during brain development, inflammation, ischemia, and neurodegeneration. This bibliometric and visualized study aimed to confirm the top 100 cited original research in the field and to analyze their characteristics.MethodsThe Web of Science database (WOS) was retrieved using the specific search strategy. The top 100 cited original articles that focused on the role of microglia in neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) were filtered by two researchers independently. The trend of yearly publications and citations, citation densities, languages, and global contributions were analyzed. The highly cited countries, authors, institutions, and journals were visualized by bibliographic coupling analysis. The highly cited authors and journals in the references were visualized by co-citation analysis. The research hotspots were revealed by co-occurrence analysis and burst detection of author keywords.ResultsThe top 100 cited articles were published during the period 1988 to 2019. The peak of publication occurred in 2005 and 2006. The yearly total citations presented a rising trend. The highly cited articles were contributed by 26 countries, the United States was the country with the overwhelming number of publications and cited times. Stevens, Beth was the author with the largest number of cited times. Mcgeer PL was the author most frequently cited in the references. Harvard University was the institution with the greatest number of cited times and publications. Nature was the journal with the largest number of cited times. Journal of neuroscience was both the most often published and most frequently cited journal in the references. “Microglia”, “inflammation”, “Alzheimer’s disease” were the most frequently used keywords, and their average occurred time was around 2005. “Dementia,” “delirium,” “priming” were keywords that averagely occurred around 2010. The burst detection revealed that “TNF-beta,” “macrophage,” and “inflammation” were keywords that frequently burst in recent years.ConclusionThis bibliometric and visualized study revealed the top 100 cited original research that discussed the role of microglia in NDs. The United States was the biggest contributor, Harford University was the most influential institution. Journal of Neuroscience was the most often published and cited journal. Alzheimer’s disease was the hotspot in microglia and NDs. Recent research mainly focused on inflammation.

Background and Purpose A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed of the outcome of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) who received disease-modifying therapies (DMTs). Methods Relevant studies published before November 2022 in the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Web of Science databases were retrieved using the following search expression: (“multiple sclerosis” OR “MS”) AND (“DMT” OR “disease modifying therapies”) AND (“COVID-19”). Two authors independently screened the articles and extracted the data. Qualitative analyses and a meta-analysis constituted 22 of the 794 retrieved articles. Differences in the hospitalization and mortality rates were used as the main measures of efficacy, and the meta-analysis was performed using RevMan software. Results 22 clinical trials were selected. The hospitalization rate was lower in the 3,216 patients who received DMTs than in the 774 patients who did not receive any treatment, with a moderate effect size of 0.43 ( p <0.00001). The mortality rate was also lower among patients with MS treated using DMTs than in controls (odds ratio [OR]=0.19, 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.13–0.27, p <0.00001). The hospitalization rates for COVID-19 infection in patients with MS treated with anti-CD20 therapy also increased markedly (OR=3.32, 95% CI=2.63–4.20, p <0.00001). However, there was no significant difference between patients with MS who did and did not receive DMTs. Conclusions In summary, the application of DMTs was found to be valuable for patients with MS infected with COVID-19. However, more clinical studies are needed to determine the use of anti-CD20 drugs in patients with MS during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: To validate two proposed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) prognosis models, analyze the characteristics of different models, consider the performance of models in predicting different outcomes, and provide new insights into the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) predictive models in clinical decision-making for COVID-19 and other diseases. Materials and Methods: We compared two proposed prediction models for COVID-19 prognosis that use a decision tree and logistic regression modeling. We evaluated the effectiveness of different model-building strategies using laboratory tests and/or clinical record data, their sensitivity and robustness to the timings of records used and the presence of missing data, and their predictive performance and capabilities in single-site and multicenter settings. Results: The predictive accuracies of the two models after retraining were improved to 93.2% and 93.9%, compared with that of the models directly used, with accuracies of 84.3% and 87.9%, indicating that the prediction models could not be used directly and require retraining based on actual data. In addition, based on the prediction model, new features obtained by model comparison and literature evidence were transferred to integrate the new models with better performance. Conclusions: Comparing the characteristics and differences of datasets used in model training, effective model verification, and a fusion of models is necessary in improving the performance of AI models.

Background:Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the major diseases that threaten human health.This study aimed to evaluate the effect and mechanisms of action of Rebaudioside B (Reb B) in the treatment of MS.Methods: Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was used to induce an inflammatory response in BV2 microglial cells, which simulates an in vitro MS model.Reb B was screened from small molecular libraries using CCK8 assay and BAX kit. The morphology and functional changes in the LPS- induced BV2 cells were analyzed using the Hoechst 33258 fluorescence staining assay and Western blot (WB).In addition, we established the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) model of MS in female C57BL/6 mice.We then assessed the clinical symptoms of the EAE mice, and analyzed changes in the expression of key proteins in signal transduction pathways by histopathological staining and WB.Results: Our data showed that the cell viability in the LPS+Reb B group was highest after administration of 10μM Reb B.Compared with the control group, the apoptotic rate, the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio and the expression of cleavage caspase-3 were significantly increased in the BV2 cells under LPS exposure, a finding that contrasted the trend in the Reb B intervention model group. In the EAE model,there was improvement of clinical symptom scores in the drug treatment group.In addition,histological assessment demonstrated that there was less inflammatory infiltration and less demyelination area in the treatment group compared to the model group.Conclusion: Taken together,our data demonstrated that Reb B offers protective effect against EAE microglia through inhibition of an apoptotic pathway.