Discovering Health Topics in Social Media Using Topic Models

By aggregating self-reported health statuses across millions of users, we seek to characterize the variety of health information discussed in Twitter. We describe a topic modeling framework for discovering health topics in Twitter, a social media website. This is an exploratory approach with the goal of understanding what health topics are commonly discussed in social media. This paper describes in detail a statistical topic model created for this purpose, the Ailment Topic Aspect Model (ATAM), as well as our system for filtering general Twitter data based on health keywords and supervised classification. We show how ATAM and other topic models can automatically infer health topics in 144 million Twitter messages from 2011 to 2013. ATAM discovered 13 coherent clusters of Twitter messages, some of which correlate with seasonal influenza (r = 0.689) and allergies (r = 0.810) temporal surveillance data, as well as exercise (r = .534) and obesity (r = −.631) related geographic survey data in the United States. These results demonstrate that it is possible to automatically discover topics that attain statistically significant correlations with ground truth data, despite using minimal human supervision and no historical data to train the model, in contrast to prior work. Additionally, these results demonstrate that a single general-purpose model can identify many different health topics in social media.     

GSK-3与精神障碍的关系

糖原合成酶激酶3(GSK-3)是一种丝/苏氨酸蛋白激酶,通过Wnt/β-catenin等多条信号通路来调节机体的代谢、生长发育和凋亡等过程,是机体生存必不可少的物质。大量研究表明,GSK-3调节异常可以激活特定细胞、通路和环路,从而诱发精神障碍,如双向情感障碍、抑郁症、孤独症和精神分裂症等。抑制GSK-3活性是精神疾病治疗方法的一个重要组分。本文对近年来国内外有关GSK-3在精神疾病中的作用机制予以综述,以期为临床治疗提供依据。     

Brain and Mind

In the last few years great progress has been made in many fields of knowledge. Technology has moved forward with rapid strides, and with the appearance of self-regulating systems it has moved to a new stage. Significant progress has been achieved in physics and biology; new branches of medicine have been formulated and are being developed; and substantial changes have also been noted in a sphere of particular relevance and importance for each of us, in psychology, the science of man's mental life and the laws of his behavior.     

Mind Architecture and Brain Architecture

The use of the computer metaphor has led to the proposal of mind architecture (Pylyshyn 1984; Newell 1990) as a model of the organization of the mind. The dualist computational model, however, has, since the earliest days of psychological functionalism, required that the concepts mind architecture and brain architecture be remote from each other. The development of both connectionism and neurocomputational science, has sought to dispense with this dualism and provide general models of consciousness – a uniform cognitive architecture –, which is in general reductionist, but which retains the computer metaphor. This paper examines, in the first place, the concepts of mind architecture and brain architecture, in order to evaluate the syntheses which have recently been offered. It then moves on to show how modifications which have been made to classical functionalist mind architectures, with the aim of making them compatible with brain architectures, are unable to resolve some of the most serious problems of functionalism. Some suggestions are given as to why it is not possible to relate mind structures and brain structures by using neurocomputational approaches, and finally the question is raised of the validity of reductionism in a theory which sets out to unite mind and brain architectures.     

脑外伤所致精神障碍的危险因素分析

目的：探究脑外伤所致精神障碍的的危险因素,以探究各类因素与脑外伤患者预后的关联,为今后的临床治疗及干预措施提供理论依据。方法：对我院2009年6月-2012年9月收治的217例脑外伤患者进行回顾分析,按照其是否出现精神障碍分为精神障碍组及非精神障碍组,对比其临床资料,将存在统计学意义的指标纳入Logistic多因素回归分析,探讨脑外伤所致精神障碍的的危险因素。结果：217例脑外伤患者共出现162例精神障碍,精神障碍发病率74．7％;两组患者一般资料对比可见,颅内血肿、脑干损伤、脑叶损伤范围、GCS评分及EPQ评分存在统计学意义（p〈0．05）;多因素回归分析发现,GCS评分s8分及EPQ评分≥30分存在统计学差异（p〈0．05）,是影响脑外伤所致精神障碍的独立危险因素。结论：GCS评分s8分及EPQ评分≥30分存在统计学差异（p〈0．05）,是影响脑外伤所致精神障碍的独立危险因素,应在患者接受常规脑外伤治疗后进行环境护理、日常生活护理及心理护理,改善其不稳定情绪,并对其意识状态进行密切监测,必要时可预防性使用抗精神病药物,以降低患者精神障碍患病率,改善其生活质量。     

Neurotransmitter Specific,Cellular-Resolution Functional Brain Mapping Using Receptor Coated Nanoparticles: Assessment of the Possibility

Receptor coated resonant nanoparticles and quantum dots are proposed to provide a cellular-level resolution image of neural activities inside the brain. The functionalized nanoparticles and quantum dots in this approach will selectively bind to different neurotransmitters in the extra-synaptic regions of neurons. This allows us to detect neural activities in real time by monitoring the nanoparticles and quantum dots optically. Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) with two different geometries (sphere and rod) and quantum dots (QDs) with different sizes were studied along with three different neurotransmitters: dopamine, gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), and glycine. The absorption/emission spectra of GNPs and QDs before and after binding of neurotransmitters and their corresponding receptors are reported. The results using QDs and nanorods with diameter 25nm and aspect rations larger than three were promising for the development of the proposed functional brain mapping approach.     

Coupling between Neuronal and Glial Cells via Glutamate Metabolism in Brain of Healthy Persons and Patients with Mental Disorders

This review summarizes general considerations on glutamate metabolism in human brain. Biochemical coupling between neurons and glia is discussed with respect to glutamate metabolism and its compartmentation. Glutamate recycling and the role of key glutamate-metabolizing enzymes are viewed. Alterations in components of glutamatergic system and glutamate metabolizing enzymes are considered with reference to mental disorders such as senile dementia of Alzheimer's type and schizophrenia.