Single Experimental Research Research Articles

Study of serum level of kisspeptin and interferon-beta in genital wart patients.

Researchers are interested in genital wart (GW) studies due to their increased incidence. In a single experimental research, virally infected mouse models showed elevated kisspeptin levels and low interferon levels. The objective of the study was to evaluate the serum levels of kisspeptin and interferon (INF)-beta in GW patients. Forty patients with GWs and forty healthy participants of comparable age and sex as a control group were included in this case-control study. Serum levels of kisspeptin and IFN-beta were measured using ELISA during the period from December 2021 to April 2022. Kisspeptin was significantly higher among cases than controls, whereas IFN-beta level was lower among cases than controls (P < 0.001). There were no significant relations between kisspeptin and IFN-beta levels and the clinical data for the studied participants, and there was no significant correlation between both (P > 0.05). The reported increased kisspeptin level which was associated with decreased interferon-beta level in patients with GWs might indicate a new insight into viral infection pathogenesis. Further research including all steps in kisspeptin/G protein-coupled receptor 54 pathway is required. Targeted therapy for this pathway may be of value for those patients.

Effects of explanation expectancy on text comprehension: an experiment and a meta-analysis

Prior studies have investigated whether the expectation that one will explain learned materials after learning (explanation expectancy) promotes text comprehension. Such researches, however, have had inconsistent results. In Study 1, we examined whether an elaborative explanation orientation, which refers to the belief that it is important to elaborate and organize a passage when explaining, moderated the effect of explanation expectancy. The results showed neither a moderation effect nor an effect of explanation expectancy. This suggests that the effect size of explanation expectancy was not large, so that a single experimental research with limited sample size could not reliably find a positive effect. In Study 2, a meta-analysis was conducted to infer more accurately the influence of explanation expectancy on text comprehension. Based on a sample of 7 reports (n = 289), the results showed that the effect size g for explanation expectancy was 0.51 (95% CI = (0.10, 0.91)). This finding demonstrates that the inconsistent results of previous research could be caused by small sample sizes, and explanation expectancy improves text comprehension.