Astrocytes occupy a vast area within the central nervous system (CNS). Despite their abundance, the functional role of astrocytes in vivo has only begun to be uncovered. Astrocytes were typically thought to be involved in pathophysiological states. However, recent studies have shown that astrocytes are actively involved in cell signaling in normal physiological states; manipulating various aspects of astrocytic cell signaling in vivo has revealed that astrocytes are key players in controlling healthy behavior in the absence of pathophysiology. Unfortunately, the study of astrocyte function is often limited by the number of approaches available due to our lack of understanding of cell physiology. This review summarizes recent studies in which altered astrocyte signaling capacity resulted in dramatic changes in behavior. We not only discuss the methodologies available to manipulate astrocytes but also provide insights into the behavioral roles of astrocytes in the CNS.

Background: A sex-difference in susceptibility to chronic pain is well-known. Although recent studies have begun to reveal the sex-dependent mechanisms of nerve injury-induced pain sensitization, sex differences in the affective and cognitive brain dysfunctions associated with chronic pain have not been investigated. Therefore, we tested whether chronic pain leads to affective and cognitive disorders in a mouse neuropathic pain model and whether those disorders are sexually dimorphic. Methods: Chronic neuropathic pain was induced in male and female mice by L5 spinal nerve transection (SNT) injury. Pain sensitivity was measured with the von Frey test. Affective behaviors such as depression and anxiety were assessed by the forced swim, tail suspension, and open field tests. Cognitive brain function was assessed with the Morris water maze and the novel object location and novel object recognition tests. Results: Mechanical allodynia was induced and maintained for up to 8 weeks after SNT in both male and female mice. Depressive-and anxiety-like behaviors were observed 8 weeks post-SNT injury regardless of sex. Chronic paininduced cognitive deficits measured with the Morris water maze and novel object location test were seen only in male mice, not in female mice. Conclusions: Chronic neuropathic pain is accompanied by anxiety-and depressive-like behaviors in a mouse model regardless of sex, and male mice are more vulnerable than female mice to chronic pain-associated cognitive deficits.

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BACKGROUND Despite the widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHR), extracting research data from EHRs depends on a time-consuming manual task. Robotic process automation (RPA) has the potential to solve this problem. OBJECTIVE Analyze the effectiveness of RPA in the abstraction of cancer registry data. METHODS The effect of RPA was analyzed by comparing the required duration of work before and after the implementation of RPA. Furthermore, an in-depth interview was conducted to investigate critical factors for implementing RPA for research data abstraction. RPA was implemented to extract 70 and 83 variables for gastric and breast cancer, respectively. RESULTS The data extraction time per patient was reduced by 74% and 30% for gastric and breast cancer, respectively. During in-depth interviews, participants who implemented RPA in the project emphasized the significance of explicitly defining the target process by identifying small, repeatable unit tasks. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, RPA effectively extracted gastric and breast cancer registry data from EHRs, thus saving time.