State International Joint Research Center for Animal Health Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, Shihezi University, Shihezi, People's Republic of China.
Postpartum depression affects 10-20% of women after childbirth, with rates up to 30-50% in high-risk groups. A multimodal analgesic protocol combining dexmedetomidine and esketamine, given during and after cesarean delivery, was associated with a lower incidence of postpartum depression at six weeks (14.6% vs. 29.1% in controls), better sleep quality, and reduced opioid use in 82 high-risk parturients. The intervention group showed a greater decrease in depression scores and improved sleep scores. Transient psychotomimetic effects occurred in 8.5% of patients. These findings suggest the protocol may reduce postpartum depression risk, though randomized trials are needed to confirm causality.
In people with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), resting-state functional connectivity (FC) between brain regions involved in vestibular, motor, and sensory processing is abnormally elevated compared to healthy controls. After a canalith repositioning maneuver, whole-brain average FC strength decreased significantly, and connectivity between specific region pairs—including prefrontal cortex, occipital cortex, middle temporal gyrus, motor cortex, and somatosensory cortex—returned to normal levels. Clinical symptoms also improved: the Dizziness Handicap Inventory score dropped by 23.4% and the Visual Analogue Scale score showed a significant reduction. The findings suggest BPPV involves compensatory enhancement of the vestibulo-sensorimotor network, and that repositioning therapy restores pathologically enhanced FC to normal, supporting functional near-infrared spectroscopy as a potential objective biomarker for evaluating BPPV neural mechanisms and treatment efficacy.