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"Oral Nutritional Supplements: Sugars Articles along with Possible Dental care Implications".
Chronic pain is a major public health challenge in the United States and around the world. Current treatments including opioid analgesics and cognitive behavioral therapy possess harmful side effects or limited efficacy, respectively. Chronic pain is associated with a variety of unhealthy behaviors including opioid misuse. Moreover, individuals who suffer from chronic pain exhibit excessive discounting of delayed rewards, suggesting a constricted temporal window of valuation. Reductions in the excessive discounting of delayed rewards has been achieved with Episodic Future Thinking (EFT; vividly imagining realistic future events). EFT has also been associated with reductions in a variety of unhealthy behaviors. In this study, the effects of EFT on delay discounting and levels of pain were investigated in individuals reporting chronic pain.

Individuals reporting chronic pain (N = 250; 42.4 % female) were recruited through the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform. Measures of delay discounting and pain were collected at baseline and again after randomization to EFT (N = 128) or Control Episodic Thinking (CET) (N = 122).

EFT significantly reduced delay discounting relative to baseline (p < 0.001) and EFT reduced pain scores in a baseline dependent manner (p = 0.001) when compared to CET; that is, those with the greatest reports of pain experienced the greatest reduction. Furthermore the reduction in delay discounting fully mediated the reduction in pain.

These findings suggest that Episodic Future Thinking, by widening the temporal window, may reduce pain in those reporting chronic pain and therefore represents a potential novel therapeutic.
These findings suggest that Episodic Future Thinking, by widening the temporal window, may reduce pain in those reporting chronic pain and therefore represents a potential novel therapeutic.
Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa Korth.) has been used in Southeast Asia for hundreds of years to increase energy, for relaxation, and to diminish opioid withdrawal. Kratom use has recently spread to Western countries. Kratom could potentially be used for the treatment of opioid withdrawal and pain, but more insight is needed into its abuse potential. Therefore, we investigated the rewarding properties of the primary kratom alkaloid mitragynine and its active metabolite 7-hydroxymitragynine, and morphine as a reference drug in male and female rats. These compounds have agonist activity at mu-opioid receptors.

The compounds were tested in an intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) procedure, which allows for the evaluation of the rewarding/aversive and sedative effects of drugs. Rewarding doses of drugs decrease the brain reward thresholds, and aversive drug doses have the opposite effect.

Mitragynine, 7-hydroxymitragynine, and morphine affected the brain reward thresholds. A high dose of 7-hydroxymitragynine (3.2 mg/kg) increased the brain reward thresholds, whereas an intermediate dose of morphine (10 mg/kg) decreased the reward thresholds. 7-Hydroxymitragynine and morphine affected the response latencies. Five mg/kg of morphine increased response latencies. 7-Hydroxymitragynine tended to increase the response latencies, but the post hoc analyses did not reveal a significant effect. There were no sex differences in the effects of mitragynine, 7-hydroxymitragynine, and morphine on the reward thresholds and the response latencies.

These initial findings indicate that mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine are not rewarding in the ICSS procedure. The present results suggest that these kratom alkaloids do not have abuse potential.
These initial findings indicate that mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine are not rewarding in the ICSS procedure. The present results suggest that these kratom alkaloids do not have abuse potential.In this study, cotton fabrics decorated with Ag/AgCl and Ag/AgBr NPs were produced by a simple hydrothermal treatment using AgCl and AgBr as precursors. MLN8054 Their morphological features as well as, chemical composition and structural and luminescence properties were compared. Their water disinfection aptitude against E. coli and S. aureus was also investigated under solar illumination in batch as well asin dynamic conditions. The highest activity was observed for Cot-Ag/AgCl with a quasi-complete inactivation of E. coli and S. aureus(1.5 × 107cfu mL-1) within 15 min illumination. Disinfection efficiency under continuous flow was also tested using a home-made photoreactor and the cotton fabrics with the most efficient photocatalyst (Ag/AgCl). It has shown to be efficient at least for 10 cycles revealing the robustness of the functionalization. The mechanism of photocatalytic disinfection was explained in terms of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) induced by the presence of Ag NPs, the resulting holes, h+, being one of the most intervenient species in the disinfection mechanism. The difference in the photocatalytic efficiency between AgCl and AgBr functionalized cotton was attributed to differences in the carriers (h+and e-) lifetime. This work provides a proof of concept for the potential applicability of Cot-Ag/AgCl or Cot-Ag/AgBr for in-flow potabilization of water under solar illumination.The infiltration of ions into hydrogel matrix could significantly affect the microstructure and macroscopic mechanics of the gels. Here, the Hofmeister effect of various salts on the whey protein isolate hydrogels with fine-stranded and particulate microstructures is investigated by soaking the preformed hydrogels in the sodium salts of different anions. The infiltration of kosmotropic anions yield stiffer hydrogels, whereas the chaotropic anions soften the hydrogels. The hydrogels with fine-stranded microstructures are more sensitive to the salts comparing to the particulate ones due to the microscopic phase transitions and enhanced hydrophobic interactions between polymer chains occurred in fine-stranded hydrogels. Besides, despite the significant difference in water binding ability of different salts, the water holding capacity of the salt-treated hydrogels was mainly determined by the gel stiffness instead of the salt types. Similar mechanical responses of BSA and egg white protein hydrogels to the Hofmeister series was also demonstrated, suggesting that the results shown here could potentially be generalized for other globular protein hydrogels.
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