Shahed University

Fatty acid ethanolamides (FAEs) are bioactive lipids with amphiphilic properties and potential as prodrugs. In this study, a homologous series of FAEs (C8:0-C18:0) was evaluated for solubility, hydrophobicity, rheology, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), apoptosis, and molecular docking affinity. Medium-chain FAEs (C8:0-C10:0) exhibited high solubility and limited apoptotic activity, whereas C12:0-MEA exhibited a distinct profile characterized by enhanced ROS, MMP disruption, and pronounced apoptosis. Long-chain FAEs (C14:0-C18:0) demonstrated greater hydrophobicity and enhanced apoptotic effects, mediated through both ROS-dependent and independent pathways. Molecular docking revealed interactions of C12:0- and C16:0-C18:0-MEA with cannabinoid receptors (PDB IDs: 5TGZ and 6PT0), supporting a mechanistic basis for their biological activity. Principal component analysis identified acyl chain length as the dominant determinant of physicochemical and biological behavior, effectively distinguishing FAEs based on their solubility and bioactivity profiles. These findings underscore the role of chain length in modulating ROS generation, and apoptotic activity. The distinct activity profile of C12:0-MEA emphasizes its potential as a targeted prodrug, providing controlled bioactivity while minimizing off-target toxicity. This study delivers a comprehensive structure-function characterization of FAEs, offering insights for designing lipid-based prodrugs with optimized physicochemical and biological properties for therapeutic applications.

This study investigated numerical and non-numerical working memory (WM) deficits in children with Mathematical difficulties (MD) using a novel WM task that integrates both domains. This prospective longitudinal cohort study initially recruited 500 preschool children. All participants underwent comprehensive cognitive, behavioral, and electrophysiological screening. After multi-stage assessments a final sample of 54 children was selected. This sample comprised 27 children diagnosed with mathematical difficulties (27 MD children; mean age = 76 ± 4 months; 9 girls) and (27 control; mean age = 77 ± 5 months; 10 girls). Behaviorally, children with MD exhibited lower hit rates, higher false alarm (FA) rates, and significantly reduced signal detection sensitivity (d′) scores, indicating widespread WM impairments. Event-related potential (ERP) analyses revealed that the Late Posterior Negativity (LPN) component—a neural marker of WM processing—was significantly diminished in children with MD across both numerical and non-numerical WM tasks. Furthermore, logistic regression analyses demonstrated that combining behavioral (d′) and electrophysiological (LPN amplitude) indices significantly predicted group membership with considerable accuracy, underscoring their potential utility in early identification of MD. These findings support the domain-general impairment hypothesis in MD and suggests that WM deficits extend beyond numerical processing to affect broader cognitive functions.

Headache is a common neurological disorder that reduces the quality of life of millions of people globally. It is usually treated on an outpatient basis, but in a few particular conditions, the patient needs hospitalization. Analyzing the headache profiles of headache-related hospitalizations can provide decision-makers with valuable information for better headache treatment. This prospective study aimed to analyze demographic information and clinical profiles of the patients hospitalized due to headache complaints at the Neurology ward of Sina Hospital between October 2022 and August 2024. Independent sample t-test and Welch's t-test were used to compare subgroups of patients, and the Mann-Kendall test was adopted to analyze the time series trend in admissions. Analyzing the data from 332 patients showed that the number of hospitalized patients increased monotonically during the study period. The patients diagnosed with secondary headaches were the largest group, followed by the patients with primary headaches and cranial neuropathies/facial pains. In all these categories, the female-to-male ratio was greater than one. Chronic migraine and medication-overuse headaches were the most common diagnoses among the primary and secondary headaches, respectively. This study showed that women are more frequently hospitalized due to headaches than men. Most of the patients were diagnosed with secondary headaches due to the more challenging nature of this category.

Over the past three decades, metabolic and bariatric surgery (MBS) has undergone significant changes in Iran, mirroring global trends and incorporating regional innovations. This study aims to investigate MBS trends in Iran over 15 years (2009-2024), with a focus on demographic patterns and procedural distribution. Data from the Iranian National Obesity Surgery Database (INOSD) provided the basis for a retrospective study. The study encompassed all patients with MBS between 2009 and 2024. The demographic traits, body mass index (BMI), obesity-associated medical disease, surgical operation type, and trends over time were analyzed. In total, 55,936 patients were included, most of whom were female (80%). The majority (62%) were aged 25-45 years. With a declining number of patients with BMI > 50kg/m² over time, most patients fell in the range of 40-50kg/m². The most common obesity-associated medical problems were hypertension (15%), severe obstructive sleep apnea (12%), type 2 diabetes mellitus (11%), and dyslipidemia (11%). Rising from 2.6% in 2009 to 56% in 2024, sleeve gastrectomy (SG) surpassed Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), which decreased from 92% in 2009 to 13% in 2024. Especially in higher BMI patients, one anastomosis gastric bypass (OAGB) demonstrated a consistent rise. Rates of revisional and conversional surgery rose over time, specifically in OAGB. With an increasing inclination for SG and OAGB, MBS trends in Iran mirror a worldwide movement toward safer and more effective treatments.

Broiler chickens reared at high altitudes face multiple stressors, including cold and hypoxia, which impair growth and gut health. Sodium butyrate (NaB) has emerged as a promising feed additive to mitigate these effects. This study evaluated the impact of non-encapsulated NaB and encapsulated (E-NaB) sodium butyrate on intestinal morphology, gene expression, and performance metrics in broilers under cold stress at high altitude. A total of 675 one-day-old Cobb broilers were assigned to nine dietary treatments: control, NaB (0.05% or 0.1%), E-NaB (0.05% or 0.1%), and their combinations. Birds were reared at 2100 m and subjected to cold stress. Growth performance, intestinal morphology, gene expression (MUC2, FABP2, GLUT2, TLR2, GPX, SOD1), and pulmonary hypertension syndrome (PHS) index (RV:TV ratio) were assessed. NaB supplementation improved the feed conversion ratio during the starter phase and overall rearing period (P < 0.05). Combined NaB+E-NaB treatments enhanced villus height, width, and surface area in the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum (P < 0.05). Gene expression analysis revealed upregulation of MUC2, FABP2, GLUT2, TLR2, GPX, and SOD1 in supplemented groups, particularly in combined treatments (P < 0.05). The RV:TV ratio, indicating PHS risk, was reduced in NaB0.1% and combined groups (P < 0.05). It is concluded that Sodium butyrate, especially in combined or encapsulated forms, improved gut health, modulated the expression of antioxidant-related genes (GPX and SOD1), and enhanced performance in broilers under cold stress and high-altitude conditions. These findings highlight NaB's potential as a strategic feed additive to enhance resilience in challenging environments.

Roman domination was introduced in 2004 by Cockayne, Dreyer, Hedetniemi, and Hedetniemi. If V ( G ) is the vertex set of a graph G, then a function f : V ( G ) → { 0 , 1 , 2 } is a Roman dominating function if every vertex u ∈ V ( G ) for which f ( u ) = 0 is adjacent to at least one vertex v for which f ( v ) = 2 . The Roman domination number of a graph G, denoted by γ R ( G ) , is the minimum weight of a Roman dominating function on G. In this work, we continue to survey what has been done on Roman domination. Mainly, we will present the signed version of some of these functions, and results on the Roman domination number when the structure of the graph is modified by addition of edges/vertices or removing edges/vertices, which are not contained in our previous four survey articles.