This description interestingly suggests that “entrenchment” or “situated fixation” of a course of action  could hinder the progress and learning experience of a person, namely—his/her inability and/or unwillingness to adapt to a new context, and/or his/her inflexibility and insistence to stay on course without any intent to change. One example of cognitive entrenchment is observed in professional football, wherein it has been argued that some football coaches are cognitively entrenched within their expert schemas, resulting in their demised game plans and strategic acumen. We advance the study of cognitive entrenchment by proposing an alternative viewpoint, which we term as the “perceived zone of certainty and uncertainty.” This proposition counters the perspective of cognitive entrenchment by arguing that it is cognitive appraisal, judgment, mental resolute, and determination of a person in cognitive certainty of his/her success or failure, or the cognitive uncertainty of success or failure, that would explain the notion of inflexibility and/or unwillingness to adapt, and/or insistence to stay on course without any attempt to deviate. Moreover, we rationalize that certainty of success or failure would closely associate with a feeling of comfort, whereas uncertainty would associate with his/her feeling discomfort. In this analysis, we strongly believe that willingness to change and adapt, reluctance and insistence to remain on course, and/or inclination to embrace flexibility may not necessarily relate to the concept of cognitive entrenchment; rather, inflexibility and/or reluctance to change for the purpose of adaptation has more to do with the desire of a person to seek a state of comfort. Finally, our conceptual analysis of cognitive entrenchment also considers an interesting theoretical concept, which we termed as “perceived optimal efficiency.” Perceived optimal efficiency, similar to cognitive relevance theory, is concerned with the relationship between minimum investment of time, effort, cognitive resources, etc., and an optimal best outcome. The issue for discussion, from our point of view, is related to the extent to which the certainty of success or failure would associate with perceived optimal efficiency.Possessing expert schemas is a positive feat that may yield different types of adaptive outcomes . Limited schemas, in contrast, may deter progress of a novice learner, limiting his/her capability to flourish. Taken as a whole, it may be concluded that expert schemas are more advantageous than novice schemas, differentiating learners in terms of expert and novice. Having said this, however, more recently, researchers have argued that possessing expert schemas could serve as deterrence. Recently, researchers have acknowledged a theoretical concept known as  Reconsidering the Trade-off Between Expertise and Flexibility: A Cognitive Entrenchment Perspective” . This cognitive behavior  may eventually result in automaticity, enabling the student to successfully solve similar problems without any difficulty. Automaticity, reflecting rote learning, memorization, and excessive practicing, may be viewed as an indication of deep, meaningful understanding of a subject matter, making it somewhat difficult to discount. In this sense, being able to utilize a cognitive strategy without apprehension and/or any indication of uncertainty would, for some, connote evidence of expertise.Recently, an article has been published, titled “e” Dane, , which ie” Dane, . Cognitie” Dane, , p. 583.status quo than to change course, given the probability of his/her uncertainty of success, etc. On this basis, expertise instills confidence, mental resolute, and self-determination, convincing a person to maintain and sustain his/her course of action. Novice schemas, in contrast, could also act as sources of motivation, potentially compelling a person to consider changing his/her course of action in order to improve. From this brief account, we contend that inner satisfaction, gratification, and/or fulfillment of inner needs may explain “situated fixation”  or change  of a person to his/her own knowledge, understanding, skills, etc. This theoretical account is poignant as it suggests that there are potential reasons, which may account for cognitive thinking, action, and behavior of a person—for example, the willingness to change vs. the insistence to stay on course.Automaticity, success, and ease may all combine to explain and account for cognitive entrenchment . This theoretical premise is logical as it suggests that a person may feel more inclined to stay on course when he/she is well-versed and knowledgeable about a subject matter. Largely, in terms of observation and explanation, a person may feel more at ease with the seek a state of comfort  and, by the same token, to avoid a state of discomfort . For example, a university student may choose to remain on course with a specialization  despite the objection of his/her family, or the willingness of a musician to change genre may arise from his/her perception of comfort  or a desire to seek comfort. With this premise in mind, we rationalize that there are a number of cognitive determinants that could associate with the seeking of comfort of a person—for example, cognitive appraisal, judgment, decision-making, and determination of “certainty” of a successful course of action. In contrast, likewise, we propose that a perceived sense of uncertainty would intimately link to a state of discomfort. In the latter section of this article, we discuss an important proposition that we term as the principle of cognitive certainty and uncertainty, which considers cognitive appraisal, judgment, and decision-making of a situated context in terms of comfort and discomfort.The focus of this article is for us to introduce and discuss an alternative perspective that may counter the propositions of cognitive entrenchment Dane, , 2011. Wcognitive load imposition , is different from novice schemas, or inexperience and limited knowledge, skills, and/or understanding of and in a subject matter. A novice learner in this case, for example, would exhibit superficial understanding  and have difficulties in comprehension and/or adaptation to a new context or a similar situation.Relating to the study of nt Dane, , which int Dane, , cognitint Dane,  places e Benner, . Expertinature of schema. The nature of schemas, in this case, delves into the complexity, or quantity and quality, of the schemas of a person  . Interestingly, the work of Piaget  to a balanced cognitive state of thinking , importantly, reflects the cognitive growth of a person. In relation to academic learning, say, a student may use group discussions, debates, individual exploration, group work, teacher scaffolding, etc., to resolve his/her cognitive conflict  the perceived difficulty of a person to adapt, make changes, and/or resolve a new context or situation, and (iii) the reluctance of a person to accept change, criticism, and/or advice.Situated fixation may limit the flexibility of a person to progress and grow cognitively and/or non-cognitively . Many observers have noted that despite his stellar track record , José Mourinho has somewhat declined to the point where some journalists and pundits have referred to him as a man of yesterday (source: https://www.the42.ie/is-jose-mourinho-now-yesterdays-man-5140367-Jul2020/). In a recent article published online, for example, Tannoury . This collective insight, interestingly, reflects a potential example of cognitive entrenchment for José Mourinho, detailing his inability, inflexibility, and/or unwillingness to adapt to the “modern game” of football. An article of Grech , likewise, has provided an in-depth analysis of demise of José Mourinho and in particular, his personal experience of cognitive entrenchment. Concurring with assessment of Liliane Tannoury, Paul Grech argues that the modern game in football has evolved and the training methodology of José Mourinho , which served so well has become obsolete.Upon inspection, there is credence to acknowledge and accept the “negativity” of cognitive entrenchment, which may apply to different contexts. One non-academic example of cognitive entrenchment recently discussed relates to professional football coaching. Those who follow European football would know the name José Mourinho, who is considered to be one of the most revered and decorated coaches of all time   may limit the inclination and/or willingness of a person to engage in inventive, innovative, and/or creative acts. Cognitive entrenchment, according to Dane , 2011, mstatus quo  may arise from a belief of a person that such “deviation” would cause chaos and result in a perceived state of uncertainty. Moreover, cognitive entrenchment may instill and/or strengthen the confidence and state of mental resolute of a person, assisting to account for a perception of comfort.Valid and positive reasons for the enactment of cognitive entrenchment in both educational and non-educational contexts are plausible. This consideration is poignant as it posits the possibility that one may purposively “fixate” to a course of action for meaningful reasons. One interesting reason, for example, may relate to the internal desire of a person to experience a “state of comfort” rather than discomfort. To date, to our knowledge, very little has been inquired into the extent to which seeking of comfort of a person could account for his/her cognitive entrenchment. As a possibility, unwillingness to change from the perception of comfort of a person , stagnated progress, and limited, if any, growth. Taking into account the theory of flow of Csíkszentmihályi ,b, we coIt is natural for us to want to seek a state of comfort and, by the same token, to avoid a state of discomfort. In academic and/or in school contexts, for example, we contend that a comfort zone is intricately linked to a perceived positive school climate, and/or a classroom climate, espousing the perceptions, feelings, and experiences of emotional support, social safety, academic scaffolding, etc. , as we previously discussed, is a potential example, which could substantiate our rationalization. In this analysis, the inflexibility of José Mourinho  and his unwillingness to change  may relate to a personal need for comfort—that he is more “comfortable” to use defensive techniques, which have brought him so many successes in the past.One underlying premise of our examination and focus of inquiry entails the plausibility that cognitive entrenchment, or the situated fixation of a person to a well-versed course of action, could intimately relate to a state of comfort. For example, in-depth knowledge of a subject matter may instill a perception of stability, confidence, and optimism in a person, all of which are positive characteristics of comfort. Deviating from a well-versed course of action , in contrast, could give rise to a perception of uncertainty, unsureness, and pessimism, coinciding with a sense of discomfort. The case of José Mourinho . In this analysis, we do not view the notion of cognitive entrenchment, or the situated fixation of a person to a course of action, as being negative and/or detrimental—for example, a person's unwillingness and/or reluctance of a person to change a course of action, and/or his/her indication of difficulty to adapt to a new context or situation. Our proposition, in this case, considers the potential positivity or positive “reasons” for the seeking of a person to remain fixated to a course of action. One sound and logical reason, as we described, is associated with the desire of a person to seek a state of comfort and, by the same token, to avoid a state of discomfort. In other words, situated fixation to a well-versed course of action  may continue to bring success, resulting in a perceived state of comfort . Deviating from a well-versed course of action, in this analysis, could instill unsureness and uncertainty , giving rise to feelings of angst, pessimism, and helplessness. In this sense, striving to achieve a perceived state of comfort would serve as reinforcement, whereas avoidance of discomfort would serve as deterrence to remain on course without any change .perceived zone of cognitive certainty would align with a state of comfort, whereas a perceived zone of cognitive uncertainty would align with a state of discomfort. Foremost from this consideration is the importance of the assessment, judgment, and rationalization of a person, which could warrant and provide justification for the position of cognitive entrenchment . On this basis, our consideration entails the question of whether one is certain , or uncertain, that a continuing course of action would bring success .Our conceptualization for development, taking into account the theoretical concept of comfort (and discomfort) White,  considerWe prefer the terms “certainty”  and “uncertainty”  as these nomenclature, we believe, would reflect the cognitive maturity of a person, detailing his/her understanding, skills, and experiences of judgment, assessment, and decision-making. For example, there are two possibilities: (i) the ability of a person to make sound and accurate judgment and assess whether a current course of action, drawn from existing schemas, would result in successful outcome(s), and (ii) the mental fortitude, state of confidence, and rationalization of a person to weigh his/her decision regarding the course of action.From our point of view, the cognitive maturity of a person may consist of his/her individual assessment, judgment, and decision-making prior and during the course of an action. Our conceptualization, in particular, considers the extent to which assessment and judgment of a state of certainty or uncertainty  could, in fact, account for and/or influence the situated fixation of a person to a course of action. We interestingly make attempts to unify and relate the following: (i) the zone of cognitive certainty with a perceived sense of comfort , and (ii) the zone of cognitive uncertainty with a perceived sense of discomfort .theory of probability  is thoughtful, timely, and purposive, serving as evidence of the state of cognitive growth and life wisdom of a person.From the preceding sections, the testament of cognitive certainty of success, or failure of a person, may intimately relate to his/her assessment and judgment, and, more importantly, reflect the process of decision-making. The resolute or irresolute attitude of a person, for that matter, entails some form of risk-taking, which, in this case, consists of a 50–50 probability chance . Risk-taking, however, is more than just a “present-moment” sense of determination and decision-making. Rather, despite its nomenclature, risk-taking entails the personal characteristic “considered weighing” of a person, which we define it as being his/her Cognitive certainty, as we proposed, refers to the assessment, judgment, and rationalization of a person of a context or situation at hand, and whether his/her continual course of action would yield a positive outcome  or a negative outcome . This proposition, importantly, emphasizes the cognitive appraisal, mental resolute, and self-determination of a person to take risks and make sound, logical decisions. Risk-taking is an anticipatory feat that could have profound contrasting influences on a person—for example, in terms of positivity, the risk-taking of a university student may facilitate and/or improve his/her mastery of a subject matter, resulting in a state of cognitive certainty, confidence, resolute, and optimism. By the same token, of course, risk-taking may also produce negative returns , giving rise to a state of cognitive uncertainty, pessimism, and low confidence.Details pertaining to the nature of certainty and uncertainty are shown in i. There is cognitive certainty that a positive outcome  would be achieved with the continuation of a course of action .ii. There is cognitive uncertainty that a positive outcome  would be achieved with the continuation or a change in the course of action of a person .Our conceptualization contends the possibility that a person could, in fact, transpose or “fluctuate” between a state of cognitive certainty and a state of cognitive uncertainty. A context at hand  and the subsequent approach of a person to this context, based on his/her existing schemas, may result in two contrasting positionings—that is: a negative position , which depicts the position of cognitive uncertainty of a novice vs. a positive position , which depicts the position of cognitive certainty of an expert. We posit that it is not a clear-cut 50–50% chance or probability of risk-taking and self-determination between cognitive certainty and cognitive uncertainty but, rather, as shown, an overlap between the two states. Consider the context of academia in which a university student uses his/her acquired knowledge, life wisdom, and the experiences of other students to change from a state of cognitive uncertainty to that of cognitive certainty. Over time, of course, his/her resolute, decisiveness, and cognitive certainty that Psychology, as a major, would bring positive returns  could change to one irresolute, indecisiveness, and cognitive uncertainty. In another context, likewise, a Year-9 student may indicate a state of cognitive uncertainty when learning a topic in Algebra where, over time, with continuing practice and improvement in mastery of using different pedagogical approaches, he/she is able to change his/her mental resolute, conviction, and belief in one of the cognitive certainties. Thus, from our rationalization, we stipulate the following possibilities:A perceived zone of cognitive certainty. Cognitive certainty, or a perceived zone of cognitive certainty, is positive and may, in fact, equate to that of a perceived state of comfort. We define cognitive certainty as an “envisaged state of decisiveness of a person, reflecting his/her confidence, mental resolute, and self-determination that a chosen course of action would yield either success  or failure .” Moreover, we speculate that expertise, unlike novice knowledge, could instill confidence, an appropriate level of motivation, and mental resolute, which, in effect, would determine the cognitive certainty of a person.i. Expertise is advantageous as this would assist a person to remain unchanged during the course of an action, which, in turn, could result in his/her achievement of success or his/her recognition of potential failure. On this basis, we postulate that expert learners with their in-depth knowledge and understanding would more likely associate with a state of cognitive certainty than that of cognitive uncertainty. Importantly, from our point of view, a state of cognitive certainty of success  or a state of cognitive certainty of failure  would indicate some form of “finalization,” giving rise to perceived feeling of comfort of a person. In other words, from our proposition, a state of cognitive certainty is more “definitive” and “conclusive,” whereas a state of cognitive uncertainty is indefinite and inconclusive, giving rise to a feeling and experience of discomfort, angst, pessimism, etc.A perceived zone of cognitive uncertainty. Cognitive uncertainty, or a perceived zone of cognitive uncertainty, is negative and may equate to a perceived state of discomfort. We define cognitive uncertainty as “an envisaged cognitive state of indecisiveness of a person, reflecting his/her lack of confidence, hesitation, ambivalence, and questionable thoughts that a course of action would yield either success  or failure .” Moreover, we speculate that cognitive uncertainty reflects the weak mindset of a person, which may espouse a low level of self-belief, mental resolute, and self-determination in terms of decision-making. We speculate that, unlike expert learners, a novice learner is less certain, less resolute, and less confident in his/her cognitive appraisal of a course of action.ii. Moreover, unlike that of cognitive certainty, we propose that cognitive uncertainty may closely align with the perceived feeling of discomfort of a person. Importantly, of course, the limited knowledge and understanding of a subject matter could cause a perceived sense of indecisiveness, reflecting a state of hesitation, ambivalence, and questionable thoughts about the extent to which a person could succeed. In this analysis, from our point of view, a person is more likely to perceive a state of discomfort when he/she adheres and/or expresses a state of cognitive uncertainty. In the context of schooling, a secondary school student who has limited content and procedural knowledge of Algebra, for example, is more likely to express a state of cognitive uncertainty  and, correspondingly, a feeling of discomfort .vice versa, correspondingly reflecting a state of cognitive certainty or a state of cognitive uncertainty. What is of interest, however, is the possibility that cognitive certainty and cognitive uncertainty may situate and coexist within a dynamic spectrum.From our examination, cognitive certainty is positive and may equate to the feeling of comfort, whereas cognitive uncertainty is negative and may equate to the feeling of discomfort. We propose that, progressively, with changing knowledge, skills, and experiences, decisiveness (or indecisiveness), mental resolute, and determination may change, which could result in a shift from a state of cognitive certainty to that of cognitive uncertainty, or from a state of cognitive uncertainty to that of cognitive certainty. A person, likewise, may alter and shift his/her feeling of comfort to that of discomfort, or Natural tendency would indicate that, perhaps, we all desire the personal feeling and experience of comfort in life. Comfort, unlike that of discomfort, is positive  and produces and/or causes an improvement in different types of adaptive outcomes . Cognitive certainty of success, or cognitive certainty of failure, is conclusive and more definitive, which may account for a feeling of comfort. Cognitive uncertainty of success, or cognitive uncertainty of failure, in contrast, is inconclusive and indefinite, giving rise to a feeling of discomfort, doubt, apprehension, etc. Importantly, from our point of view, both cognitive certainty and cognitive uncertainty may, in fact, associate with the theoretical concept of entrenchment Dane, , 2011. Tdifference in knowledge, skills, and understanding  could act as a central driver, which in turn would help govern the mental resolute, self-determination, and state of decisiveness of a person. Moreover, in accordance with our proposition, there are two contrasting zones that a person may purposively choose: the zone of cognitive certainty, potentially giving rise to a state of comfort, which is positive vs. the zone of cognitive uncertainty, potentially giving rise to a state of discomfort, which, of course, is negative.Our proposition, indeed, offers an alternative insight into the potential positivity of the cognitive entrenchment of a person Dane, , 2011. Doptimal best practice  the communicative principle of relevance. The cognitive principle of relevance, interestingly, indicates that internal cognitive processes of a person  are guided by his/her consideration of efficiency  in order to successfully achieve optimal bests in different academic subjects, which then would enable him/her to enter university and enroll in a desired course. “How much expenditure is enough?” is a personal question that reflects justification, logical decision-making, and sound reasoning . Justification, logical decision-making, and sound reasoning are cognitive attributes that may, importantly, associate with the theoretical concept of perceived optimal efficiency.A desirable feat, of course, would entail and dictate the maximization in an accomplished outcome for the least amount of investment and/or expenditure of time, effort, cognitive resources, etc. An undesirable feat, in contrast, would equate to the minimization in an accomplished outcome for the most amount of investment and/or expenditure of time, effort, cognitive resources, etc. This testament reflects two comparative possibilities: expenditure of time, effort, etc. is “more” than the outcome that would be accomplished vs. the accomplished outcome is “more” than the expenditure of time, effort, etc. We argue that, in this analysis, it is more desirable to have a case where the accomplished outcome is more or greater than the expenditure of time, effort, etc. Our theorization of perceived optimal efficiency , we contend, suggests that there is an intricate association between a state of cognitive certainty and a perceived state of efficiency. We argue that, in particular, there is the potential “equivalency” and/or association between optimal efficiency and cognitive certainty.i. The equivalency of optimal efficiency and cognitive certainty is interesting as it considers the possibility and the theoretical tenet that an increase in cognitive certainty could also equate to an increase in efficiency, and, by the same token, a decrease in efficiency  would equate to a decrease in cognitive certainty . From our point of view, we acknowledge that there are two possible emphases—namely: (i) self-awareness of the significance of efficiency and/or the insignificance of inefficiency  could serve as an important source of information, guiding, motivating, and/or facilitating a person to be resolute and more decisive in his/her decision-making, and (ii) personal resolute, conviction, and decisiveness in justifying a course of action in terms of success of failure , which would give rise to his/her understanding and self-awareness for a need to show efficiency.ii. Inefficiency and state of cognitive uncertainty. Cognitive uncertainty of success or failure, unlike cognitive certainty, is ambivalent and reflects, importantly, a state of indecisiveness, lack of personal resolve and confidence, and self-doubt of a person about his/her belief to maintain and/or to sustain a course of action. Cognitive uncertainty , we contend, suggests that, perhaps, there is an equivalency and/or an intricate association between a state of cognitive uncertainty and a state of inefficiency—for example, inefficiency is equivalent, or analogous, to a state of cognitive uncertainty.The equivalency of inefficiency and a state of cognitive uncertainty, similar to that of the equivalency of optimal efficiency and cognitive certainty, is interesting as it considers two comparative patterns: an increase in cognitive uncertainty would correspond with an increase in inefficiency and likewise, a decrease in inefficiency could equate with a decrease in cognitive uncertainty. This consideration, we contend, may indicate the following understanding between inefficiency and cognitive uncertainty: (i) the indifference of a person to a state of efficiency  may reflect his/her lack of motivation and state of disorganization, which then could give rise to his/her indecisiveness, lack of confidence and personal resolve, and/or self-determination in decision-making, and (ii) a state of indecisiveness, lack of confidence and personal resolve, and/or strong conviction to be certain  could, in effect, negate and/or limit a person from achieving a state of efficiency.In summary, the preceding sections emphasize a potential relationship between cognitive certainty  and perceived optimal efficiency . Moreover, of course, referring to our earlier discussions e.g., , the equpositive life qualities—such as contentment, ease, and satisfaction. A state of Y, in contrast, is undesirable and would indicate the personal experience and feeling of various negative life qualities—for example, discontentment, angst, dissatisfaction, etc.Expert knowledge and skills are integral to the accomplishment of a desirable state of X, which is positive, motivational, and proactive. A state of X, which reflects the intersection between cognitive certainty , efficiency , and perceived comfort  may indicate the personal experience and feeling of various Remaining on course without any deviation is encouraged as this cognitive fixation, we contend, would facilitate and strengthen the conviction, personal resolve, and state of decisiveness of a person in his/her decision-making and self-belief that success is definitive. Utilizing existing understanding, knowledge, experiences, etc., likewise, may help advance the progress of a person and/or minimize expenditure of personal resources , resulting in a state of efficiency and/or comfort. This theoretical contention, we contend, may explain the case of José Mourinho and his “cognitive fixation” to a specific training methodology, which has brought him immense accomplishments. For example, the personal objective to achieve a state of X , as shown in The study of cognitive entrenchment Dane, , 2011, tOur consideration of expert and novice schemas is somewhat different, resulting in our offering of an alternative viewpoint on the theoretical concept of cognitive entrenchment Dane, , 2011 orOur research development into the advancement of the potential positivity of cognitive entrenchment Dane, , 2011 isFrom the preceding sections, it is evident that continuing research development is needed to advance the study of cognitive entrenchment Dane, , 2011, wThe level of willingness, or unwillingness, to change a course of action  .The level of mental resolute, confidence, and self-determination of a person in the belief that remaining on course without any deviation for change would yield success .The willingness of a person vs. his/her reluctance to take risks during the course of learning .Levels of perceived comfort and discomfort .ClA, to assist in the identification of “overlapping” of responses between the willingness to deviate, his/her level of mental resolute, confidence, self-determination, and perceived comfort. In our recent non-experimental study that involved Taiwanese university students, for example, we used cluster analysis to explore the nature of optimal best practice  remain steadfast in an in-class intervention ? In a similar vein, could the use of pesuasive feedback encourage personal resolve and conviction of cognitive certainty? It would be of interest then for educators and researchers to consider in-class interventions, which could potentially influence the willingness of a person to change a course of action from T1 to T2. This “experimental” change, denoted as Δ (willingness to change) T2) could, in this case, indicate a state of cognitive entrenchment, whereas, in contrast, the willingness of a person to change, consequently as a result of the persuasive feedback of the teacher would reflect a state of “cognitive dis-entrenchment.”An experimental design is unique and quite appropriate for some contexts, especially given that this methodology would allow researchers to gauge causal effects and causal flows Rogosa, . Experim1 on Variable B at T2–that is, T1 Var A → T2 Var B) . It is also valid to consider multiple time points of data collection of the academic performance of a student in a subject matter and his/her corresponding indication of expenditure of time and effort—for example, mathematics quiz (MQ–T1) and expenditure of effort (E-T1) at T1 and mathematics quiz (MQ–T2) and expenditure of effort (E–T2) at T2. A comparison of MQ–T1 and MQ–T2 [i.e., to measure ΔMQ−T2) and an increase in ΔE−T2) would, in this case, indicate a state of inefficiency.It is often difficult, for various reasons , to undertake experimental studies in a school or in university. Researchers and educators have consequently resorted to the use of longitudinal, non-experimental designs, which could facilitate and enable the study of growth patterns  Bong, . Such loFinally, as one of our reviewers noted, our attempt to establish a new cognitive framework, which would provide a counterargument to the case of cognitive entrenchment Dane, , 2011, iHP and BN contributed equally to the articulation and write-up of this manuscript.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


The present review summarizes the studies carried out on this topic in the last five years. According to the new definitions, among all the compounds included in the group of prebiotics, polyphenols are probably the most important secondary metabolites produced by the plant kingdom. Many of these types of polyphenols have low bioavailability, therefore reaching the colon in unaltered form. Once in the colon, these compounds interact with the intestinal microbes bidirectionally by modulating them and, consequently, releasing metabolites. Despite much research on various metabolites, little is known about the chemistry of the metabolic routes used by different bacteria species. In this context, this review aims to investigate the prebiotic effect of polyphenols in preclinical and clinical studies, highlighting that the consumption of polyphenols leads to an increase in beneficial bacteria, as well as an increase in the production of valuable metabolites. In conclusion, there is much evidence in preclinical studies supporting the prebiotic effect of polyphenols, but further clinical studies are needed to investigate this effect in humans. Because microbiota plays such an essential role in human health, it has become a well-researched field over the past 20 years. However, there is evidence about the identification of microorganisms, since 1677, when Antonie van Leeuwenhoek described them as “animalcules”. The relevance and significance of comprehending the interrelationship between host and their resident bacteria populations are extremely necessary to improve the quality of life, prevent the risk of disease, or even treat specific pathologies . MicrobiLactobacillus, Bacillus, Clostridium, Enterococcus, Ruminococcus, Eubacterium, Faecalibacterium, and Roseburia. The second phylum is Bacteroidetes, about 23%, comprising Bacteroides and Prevotella, followed in descending order by the phyla Actinobacteria, about 3% Verrucomicrobia 2% [The human microbiota is composed of bacteria, fungi, archaea, viruses, and protozoans and can be found in many areas of the body; as it colonizes the skin, mouth, vagina, gastro-enteric tube, and/or respiratory system . Over 70robia 2% .Human microbiota differs from individual to individual and is influenced by several endogenous and exogenous factors that can affect the constitution and stability of the microbiome. For example, endogenous factors such as age, genetics, birth gestational date, mode of delivery at birth, infant feeding method, weaning period, hormonal changes, health status; and exogenous factors such as diet, the use of medications, especially antibiotics, exercise frequency, climate, geographical region, pollution level, and the level of stress management ,14,15,16Over the last years, gut microbiota gained more attention, and multiple studies have been performed considering the interaction between the human diet and the intestinal microbiome. All these studies comprise elaborate research, and their applicability to the human microbiota has progressed considerably in terms of food analysis, the interaction between certain bacterial strains, and interaction between specific food compounds ,17.The key roles of the gut microbiota are very important and accomplish essential functions for the host. Among its major roles are: maintaining the structural integrity of the endothelial barrier, influencing the growth of the immune system, providing antimicrobial protection, impacting the metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, and playing an important role in the synthesis of several vitamins such as vitamin K, biotin, cobalamin, folates, nicotinic acid, pantothenic acid, pyridoxine, riboflavin, and thiamine ,7,18,19.In addition to the studies conducted on the intestinal microbiota, there are two essential branches related to intestinal microbiota characterization: prebiotics and probiotics. In the case of prebiotics, these are defined as a selective substrate used by the microorganisms offering many benefits to the host such as protective effects on the gastrointestinal (GI) system, central nervous system, immune system, and cardiovascular system. On the other hand, probiotics are defined as living microorganisms, which also provide health benefits such as preventing bowel diseases, improving the immune system, and alleviating postmenopausal syndrome ,24,25,26Over 25 years ago, prebiotics were identified as a class of compounds with the ability to modulate the gut microbiota, conferring health advantages to the host. Since then, the definition of prebiotics has changed. For example, in 1995, prebiotics were defined by Gibson et al.  as “a noIn line with the last definition, a new class of prebiotics that meet the criteria to be categorized as prebiotic substrate , are the polyphenols. The polyphenols’ most essential health benefits are associated with their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Regarding their role as a prebiotic substrate, the advantages of polyphenols are attributed to the ability of the intestinal microbiota to metabolize phenolic compounds ,30,31,32Polyphenols are described as plants’ secondary metabolites, usually found in foods such as cereals, fruits, vegetables, wine, coffee, tea, and many other derived foods. One of the most common issues regarding the properties of the polyphenols is related to their bioavailability, a parameter influenced by multiple factors, such as food processing, food interaction, dietary intake, distribution, food content, and environmental factors. The quality and the number of benefits offered by polyphenols to the host health have a significant impact, improving the quality of life through their ability to influence the modulation of the gut microbiota ,34,35.This work aimed to review the latest studies that identified and discussed the role of polyphenols as prebiotics in gut microbiota modulation. In addition, we have presented the approaches applied for investigating the relationship between gut microbiota and various human pathologies, especially those connected with the GIT.The majority of prebiotics have carbohydrates as a major component, but there are also other classes such as polyphenols, minerals, and polyunsaturated fatty acids that exert the same prebiotic properties . PrebiotPolyphenols are a large heterogeneous collection of compounds found naturally in vegetables, fruits, cereals, tea, coffee, dark chocolate, cacao powder, and wine. However, they all have a structural unit in common, hydroxylated aromatic rings or phenolic rings . ConsideThe definition of prebiotics is similar to the definition of dietary fibers. However, the definition of prebiotics is differentiated by the selectivity for certain species. Natural sources of carbohydrate-based prebiotics comprise two main categories: dietary fibers and sugar alcohols. In the case of dietary fibers, these include nondigestible starch polysaccharides (with resistant starch), nonstarch polysaccharides, and sugar alcohols (represented mainly by sorbitol and mannitol), which are derived from simple sugars .Regular fruit and vegetable consumption is part of a healthy diet and brings many benefits through their content of phytochemicals, including polyphenols, polysaccharides, and terpenoids. The main ways in which these phytochemicals bring benefits are through their nonabsorbed fraction that acts as a prebiotic and their absorbed part that induces stress resistance mechanisms. The phytochemical class has a broad range of effects, mainly by modulating gut microbiota and maintaining its homeostasis .By comparison with other compounds, such as carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, phytochemicals are not required for physiological functions , but they can induce biological effects. For instance, after absorption, phytochemicals can improve gut barrier integrity by inducing the expression of tight junction proteins by activating the aryl hydrocarbon receptor in the lumen of the epithelial cells .The evidence of the positive effects of the phytochemicals is constantly growing, especially about polyphenols, as the intake through diet is high, and they play a significant role in gut microbiota modulation. Due to their bioavailability, their effects are closely connected with the food matrix, depending on whether they are consumed as isolated compounds or with the whole food . MoreoveOverall, population statistics present an estimated intake of 900–1000 mg/day polyphenols, but this can differ depending on the geographic location and sociodemographics of the targeted group. Among the most frequently consumed sources are: tea, coffee, red wine, fruits, and vegetables. In terms of types of phenolic compounds, procyanidins, flavanols, anthocyanidins, flavonols, and flavanones were among the most frequently identified .The reciprocal interrelation between gut microbiota and polyphenols is a well-known subject of interest, as it can modulate host health. The key factors of this interrelation are the bioactive metabolites. The effect of polyphenols on the intestinal microbiota is achieved by influencing the growth and metabolism of bacteria and by interfering with the cell function of the cell membrane. The majority of the polyphenols can hinder biofilm formation and significant effects via the hindering of bacterial quorum sensing. For example, the flavonol and flavones classes in the Staphylococcus genus can hinder bacterial helicase activities while increasing membrane cytoplasm permeability. Another example is the flavanone-rich citrus extract in combination with the isolated flavanones, as they stimulate a reduction of biofilm formation by inhibiting the quorum-sensing signal mediated by acyl-homoserine lactone. These flavanones can reduce the synthesis of acyl-homoserine lactone and its metabolites ,60,61.Bifidobacteriaceae and Lactobacillaceae and, on the other hand, by reducing the number of pathogenic bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Clostridium perfringens, and Helicobacter pylori [Polyphenols exert their beneficial effects as prebiotic substrate, on the one hand, by increasing the growth and settlement of the probiotic bacterial families such as r pylori ,62, a mer pylori .Akkermansia muciniphila, and F. prausnitzii, observed in mice trials, that had red grapes in their diet. Furthermore, after 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and quantitative PCR on cecal, and fecal samples, an increase of A. muciniphilla, together with a decreased ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes phylum were observed [Recent studies demonstrated the beneficial effect of polyphenols by stimulating bacteria such as observed ,65. Moreobserved .Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Clostridiales, Ruminococcus. Berries are another well-studied fruit group that is well correlated with the prebiotic effect of polyphenols, and it was demonstrated that berries can decrease the expression of IL-1β, cyclooxygenase-2, nuclear factor k-light chain enhancer of activated B cell, myeloperoxidase, malondialdehyde, and prostaglandin E2, and increased superoxide dismutase and catalase activities [The fruit group represents a specific polyphenol group that is widely studied, and the evidence confirms their prebiotic effects. Red grape extract or grape seeds were observed to have many benefits by increasing tivities ,68.Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Bacteroides, and decrease Clostridiales, Ruminococcus, Coprococcus, Oscillospira [The main sources of polyphenols are carrots, broccoli, beetroot, cauliflower, and potato peel. However, the polyphenol quantity is compared to the fruit group. For example, polyphenols from carrots are much more beneficial to human health when the carrots are consumed entirely, not only as carrot extract. Polyphenols from carrots can increase the growth of llospira . In the llospira .Prevotella, Bacteroides, Enterococcus, and Bifidobacterium in several studies on human gut microbiota [Cloacibacillus, Klebsiella, Alistipes, Akkermansia, and Victivallis, and decreased levels of Blautia coccoides, Bacteroidetes, Subdoligranulum, Anaeroglobus, and Bifidobacterium were also observed [Other food groups with an elevated polyphenol content that have a prebiotic effect through interaction with the gut microbes are the beverages, cereals, pulses , and nuts groups. In the case of the beverages group, there are well-studied compounds such as red wine polyphenols and tea polyphenols. Red wine polyphenols enhanced the concentration of the genera crobiota . After iobserved . In regaobserved  as the mobserved ,74.Bidifobacteria, such as F. prausnitzii, Lactobacillus sp., A. muciniphila [L. acidophilus, L. casei, L. delbrueckii, and to decrease the abundance of C. perfringens and Ruminococcus gnavus [For the cereal polyphenol group, compounds such as hydroxycinnamates acid, ferulic acid, coumaric acid were identified. These compounds have the property to enhance the growth of iniphila . The puliniphila . The moss gnavus . The nuts gnavus ,77.It is well known that polyphenols have beneficial effects on host gut microbiota, and on host health implicitly, as it can be observed in Hydroxycinnamic acids represent a major contribution from total polyphenol consumption and have effects on cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome, and colorectal cancer ,80,81. GFrom all plant estrogens, isoflavones have been studied the most, and more precisely, isoflavones from soy and soy products. Other isoflavone sources are green beans, mung beans, and red clover. Isoflavones comprise as main compounds genistein, daidzein, glycitein, and have many beneficial effects in several cancer types, such as breast, and prostate cancer, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, menopausal symptoms, and bone loss ,92,93.Bifidobacterium spp. and Lactobacillus-Enterococcus spp [F. prasnitzii, which is a butyrate producer. It has been shown that the stilbenes class has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, antiplatelet aggregation, cardio-protective, aging delay effects, and enhances a higher gut microbiome diversity [Penicillium spp., HIV, S. aureus, C. botulinum, and hydrolyzable tannins have bacterial activity against H. pylori, by lowering their viability.Initially known for their coloring properties, anthocyanins are a group of polyphenols with health benefits, such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory actions, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, improve weight management, neuroprotection, and can stimulate the growth of ccus spp ,96,97,98ccus spp ,101,102.iversity ,105,106.iversity ,109,110.Micrococcus luteus, Micrococcus lysodeikticus, S. aureus, and Bacillus megaterium [On the other hand, nonabsorbable tannins can reach the colonic microbiota, exerting a prebiotic effect, modulating gut microbiota composition and function, and promoting beneficial bacteria’s growth ,112,113.gaterium ,116,117.Many compounds are produced after the bacterial metabolism of macronutrients and micronutrients in the gut, and the most studied are SCFAs after fermentation of dietary fiber. About 5–10% or more of the diet is made of dietary fiber, a nutrient that includes polysaccharides, oligosaccharides, and resistant starch. In the small intestine, they are degraded by the host enzymes. After they pass to the distal gut, they serve as substrates for microbial carbohydrate-active enzymes .Bioactive compounds such as polyphenols can improve both gut health and overall health status, but the gut microbiota must be abundant and diverse for this to happen. Polyphenols are found as glycosides and complex oligomeric structures in plant foods. These intricate structures are metabolized sequentially in the human body . For exaPhenolic compounds are generally found conjugated to glycosides, glucuronides, and organic acids, which can be hydrolyzed by gut microbiota, resulting in aglycones. Consequently, after absorption from the colon, follows transformation into phase II conjugates (sulfated and glucuronidated conjugates) in the intestinal tissues and the liver. Conjugated compounds are excreted into the gut as biliary constituents via enterohepatic recirculation, and before being reabsorbed or transformed, microbial enzymes deconjugate these compounds. Fecal microbial enzymes, β-glucosidase, α-rhamnosidase, esterase, β-gluronidase, catalyze the deconjugation in the gut. Reactions such as ring and lactone fission, dehydroxylation, reduction, decarboxylation, demethylation, isomerization are also reactions induced by the gut microbiota. Microbial transformations are influenced by phenolic structure, flavonoid and nonflavonoid factors, polymerization degree, and spatial configuration ,120.One of the most common polyphenol groups is the flavonoid group. Flavonols, flavanones, flavan-3-ols, isoflavones, and anthocyanins are all members of this category. They all have the same structure: two benzene rings (ring A and B), linked by a heterocyclic pyrone C-ring. In foods, they are found as glycosides, O-glycosides, and C-glycosides, flavan-3-ols, which are not conjugated. Flavan-3-ols can form either proanthocyanidins or condensed tannins as a whole, and either procyanidins, prodelphinidins, or propelargonidins, when they are solely made up of one compound, epicatechin, epigallocatechin, epiazfelechin. Simple phenolics derived from the A and B rings are released after the gut microbiota broke down the C-ring in different positions. The resulting type of phenolic compounds is affected by the hydroxylation pattern and the position of the B-ring. Thus, in phenolic compounds as flavonols, flavan-3-ols, proanthocyanidins, rendering hydroxyphenyl-propionic acids and hydroxyphenyl acid, the C-ring cleavages are produced at 1–2 and 4–10 bonds or 1–2 and 3–4 bonds. In flavanones and isoflavone groups, the resulting metabolites show that C-ring cleavage is produced at either position 1 and 2, or 4 and 10. The following steps of flavonoid metabolism carried out by gut microbiota are: demethylation and dehydroxylation reactions. The majority of the resulting metabolites are acid of aldehyde phenolics with one, two, or three hydroxyl and methyl ester radicals, for example, 3--propionic acid from the flavonol quercetin and equol from the isoflavone daidzein ,122.The other group of phenolic compounds is the nonflavonoid group, which, compared to the flavonoid group, has a higher heterogeneity in structure and a higher polymerization level. Compounds such as benzoic acids, hydroxycinnamates, and stilbenes represent this group. Depending on their chemical complexity, they are absorbed to a greater or lesser extent in the small intestine . The mosFurthermore, the gut microbiota also transforms gallic acid and ellagic acid . Gallic Gut microbiota can transform dietary lignans and produce mammalian phytoestrogens, such as enterodiol and enterolactone. The gut microbiota can act on lignans through reductions, demethylation, dehydroxylation, and lactonization reactions. A complex pathway with several precursors, metabolites, diverse conjugation patterns, and different bacteria species is required to obtain the final product, enterolactone, from lignans ,132.Another class of nonflavonoid phenolics, respectively stilbenes, based on a C6-C2-C6 polyphenolic structure, has as a main compound studied, namely trans-resveratrol. The gut microbiota can transform resveratrol O-glucosides such as trans-piceid into resveratrol aglycone through deglycosylation. After absorption, piceid and resveratrol are conjugated in the form of sulfate and glucuronide derivates of the primary circulating metabolites. The first bacterial trans-resveratrol metabolite is dihydro-resveratrol, followed by 3,4′-dihydroxy-trans-stilbene and 3.4′dihydroxydihydro-stilbene ,134.One of the simplest groups of nonflavonoid compounds are hydroxycinnamates, including p-coumaric acid, caffeic acid, ferulic acid, sinapic acid, and their esters with quinic, malic, and tartaric acid. All of these compounds are nutrient substrates for the gut microbiota. Hydroxybenzenes  are, after decarboxylation, the final hydroxycinnamate metabolites ,136.The hydroxybenzoic acids, which are predominantly found in fruits, are the most prevalent microbial metabolites obtained in the gut from phenolic compounds, both flavonoids and nonflavonoids. Microbial decarboxylase enzymes convert phenolic compounds, including gallic acid, protocatechuic acid, and vanillic acid to pyrogallol, catechol, and O-methylcatechol when a free hydroxyl group is present at the 4-position. These metabolites can be further conjugated with glycine with an increased urinary concentration of hippuric acid, but most of them are rapidly absorbed in the GIT .In vitro studies on polyphenols have demonstrated through extraction, digestion, fermentation, and other types of chemical and microbiological methodologies that they can influence the resident bacteria, increasing or decreasing their population. In addition, food or food groups that are abundant in polyphenols have been analyzed in vitro in order to check their capacity to influence resident microbiota, with or without their other leading roles, as antioxidants and anti-inflammatories. Detailed information on the in vitro studies published so far can be found in Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, Akkermansia, Bacteroides, and Eubacterium, and decreasing the number of Pseudomonas, Salmonella, Staphylococcus, or Bacillus. The mechanism of in vitro studies still needs more understanding, but their high production of SCFAs has been identified in many studies and it can offer a direction for the prebiotic-like effect of polyphenols [Several common phenolic compounds have been observed following the studies conducted on berries. After their extraction and chemical characterization through High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), compounds such as anthocyanins, flavonols, caffeic acid derivates, ellagic acid derivates, or ellagitannins were identified. A study done in 2020 by Baenas et al.  analyzedyphenols .Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. Polyphenols were able to be used as a carbon source by these beneficial bacteria. Another review paper, done in 2018 and based on human clinical trials, tested grapes and red wine polyphenols, which showed modifications in the bacteria ratio from gut microbiota. There was an increase of Enterococcus, Prevotella, Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium, Bacteroides uniformis, Eggerthella lenta, Blautia coccoides-Eubacterium rectale groups, as well as a decrease of Actinobacteria, Clostridium spp., C. histolyticum group. In the case of dealcoholized wine intake, an increase in the Fusobacteria, Firmicutes population was noted, and a decrease in the Actinobacteria population [Another type of food with high quantities of polyphenols are grapes. They can be found mainly in the fruit as such, but also in wine or wine by-products, such as grape pomace. The most common polyphenols identified in grapes are quercetin, anthocyanins, anthocyanosides, anthocyanidins, catechins, and proantocyanidins. Previous studies conducted on the fruit, wine, wine industry by-products, and grape extracts have demonstrated the ability of polyphenols to influence the intestinal bacteria, with significant stimulation of the genera pulation ,139,140.Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, Dorea, and Lactococcus. In 2019, research evaluating the possible absorption of polyphenols and the antioxidant capacity of a mango by-product snack showed that a snack containing mango peel and mango paste provided a higher amount of polyphenols compared to mango as such [Mango peel is another high-polyphenol food with a prebiotic effect. The main polyphenols are gallates, gallotannins, flavonoids, ellagic acid, gallic acid, mangiferin, and muclurin derivates. In vitro digestion and fermentation were performed on mango peel, and it was demonstrated that it has a high quantity of indigestible fiber that can be fermented, resulting in a considerable quantity of SCFAs. Additionally, it could enhance the growth of  as such ,142,143.Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus-Enterococcus spp., and at the same time increases the production of SCFAs and inhibits the proliferation of Bacteroides and C. histolyticum groups. In 2020, Xu et al. [Firmicutes/Bacteroides ratio, and in 2013, Kerperman et al. [Klebsiella, Enterococcus, and Akkermansia, while inhibiting the growth of Bifidobacteria, B. coccoides, Anaeroglobus and Victivallis [Tea is one of the most popular beverages and is high in polyphenols. Tea has many varieties, such as green, black, and oolong, with the main polyphenolic compounds being catechins, theaflavins, and thearubigins. In 2018, Sun et al. , describu et al. , also den et al. , showed tivallis ,146,147.s in vitro studies, including digestion and fermentation, have demonstrated the polyphenols’ ability to enhance the growth of Enterobacteriaceae, Bacteroides fragilis group, Clostridia, Bifidobacteria, and lactobacilli. Catechol, gallic acid, coumaric acid, and protocatechuic acid have been identified as the main metabolites of pomegranate urolithins. The stability of phenolic compounds during in vitro digestion was also observed. This could be associated with the food matrix, not only with the initial phenolic composition [Another food with a high prebiotic-like effect that can offer many health benefits is pomegranate or different parts of it, such as the pulp, peel extract, or juice. Previouposition ,149,150.Among polyphenol-rich foods, pineapple is another good candidate. In 2021, an in vitro study done on UV–C irradiated pineapple snack bars, performed by Del juncal-Guzman et al. , there wBifidobacterium compared to a high-fat diet [Human gut microbiota has a very complex structure. Due to the fact that clinical trials are not conducted on a number of subjects, it is hard to demonstrate the exact effect of polyphenols in the human body. Therefore, the majority of the viable data translated to humans are obtained from studies performed on animals, usually mice see . In 2019fat diet ,156,157.Bacteroides individuals with a reduction in Bifidobacterium and an increase in Lachnospiraceae, Ruminococcus, and Collinsella. On the other side, in low-Bacteroides individuals they responded with a decrease in Lachnospiraceae, Ruminococcus, and Collinsella, and an increase in Bacteroides, Prevotella, and Bifidobacterium [Another type of fruit rich in polyphenols is cherries. As mentioned before, they are concentrated in anthocyanins, flavonoids, chlorogenic acid, and neochlorogenic acid. In 2017, Mayta-Apaza et al. , identifacterium .Lactobacillus, and butyrate-producing bacteria, and a decrease in E. coli and Enterobacter cloacae were observed in metabolic syndrome subjects. This effect resulted consequently in the reduction of metabolic syndrome risk markers. In another comparative study where similar changes were identified, the results supporting the prebiotic role of polyphenols were obtained from nine participants in a clinical study. Red wine, dealcoholized red wine, and gin were administrated for 20 days, and the first two interventions led to an increase of Bifidobacterium, Enterococcus, and Eggerthella lenta. Bifidobacteria growth was linked to an increase in metabolites derived from wine anthocyanins. Following gin administration, there were no observed modifications [Grapes are a rich source of polyphenols, and the wine industry is a good resource for extracting them, using mainly the pulp of the grapes. Moreover, the wine industry generates impressive quantities of grape pomace, a valuable source of bioactive compounds such as polyphenols. Ten subjects with metabolic syndrome and ten healthy subjects were included in a clinical study. Red wine was administered to both groups. A significant increase in fecal bifidobacteria, ications ,159,160.ications , done onications .Myrciaria jaboticaba or jabuticaba. The main compounds found are Castalagin, vescalagin, procyanidin A, and ellagic acid. In 2021, Fidelis et al. [Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria increased. In another study done in 2021, by Trindade et al. [A fruit rich in polyphenols and recently studied for its profile of bioactive compounds is s et al.  studied e et al. , in diete et al. ,163.Gynostemma pentaphyllum were administrated. After the administration, an increase of Bacteroides, Lactobacillus, and Bifidobacterium was observed in the treatment group. Additionally, a significant increase in Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes ratio following the consumption of Gynostemma pentaphyllum and notoginseng was observed. The consumption of Gynostemma improved the growth of F. prasnitzii as well. Green tea polyphenols also have an important impact on gut microbiota. Ma et al. [Lachnospiraceae, Bacteroides, Alistipes, and Faecalibacalum were identified as the biomarkers for intestinal redox state, revealing a beneficial impact of tea polyphenols [Tea polyphenols represent one of the most important groups containing bioactive compounds, which can influence the gut microbiota. Whether it is green tea or herbal tea, both can increase and decrease bacteria. A study done in 2015 , analyzea et al. , analyzeyphenols ,164,165.Cyclocarya paliurus and the polyphenols bound to dietary fiber, specifically carrot dietary fiber. Song et al., in 2020, [Cyclocarya paliurus flavonoids in the gut microbiota and on liver clock genes of a circadian rhythm disorder, in a study conducted in mice. It was shown that these types of flavonoids can improve the imbalance of microbial structure in the gut caused by circadian rhythm disruption, and also Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio was significantly decreased in the intervention group. The last described type of polyphenols is the one analyzed in a bound form with dietary fiber, in this case, carrot dietary fiber. In 2020, an in vitro and in vivo study done on polyphenols bound to dietary fiber highlighted that they may contribute significantly to dietary fiber’s fermentation and antioxidant properties through several actions, such as improving gut structure and balance and producing SCFAs [The last two types of polyphenols described in in 2020,  describeng SCFAs ,168.Besides the aforementioned polyphenolic groups, there are also isothiocyanates —the most abundant polyphenolic compounds found in cruciferous plants . It was This review concludes that, through recent studies and their integration in the category of prebiotics since 2016, polyphenols can be used to modulate the intestinal microbiota, a role added to their main properties, which are antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. Numerous studies, both in vitro and in vivo, show the interrelationship between polyphenols and gut microbiota. These compounds, not only by their structure but also by the resulting metabolites, are a substrate for probiotics, resulting in the growth of beneficial bacteria and the reduction of pathogenic bacteria, thereby maintaining host intestinal homeostasis.However, it is necessary to develop more studies focusing on the polyphenols’ effects in clinical trials, specifically on their metabolic pathways, the evidence observed mainly in the animal in vitro studies. Using advanced techniques such as omics technologies: metabolomics, genomics, metagenomics, trans-genomics, or proteomics; a better understanding of the polyphenols’ action in the living organisms and their consequent metabolites could be provided. Additionally, their prebiotic effect could be clearly defined and used therapeutically.In conclusion, by summarizing the latest studies that highlight the prebiotic role of the polyphenols, they have the ability to influence both the modulation of the gut microbiota and the host’s general health through their beneficial effects deriving from different mechanisms and impacting multiple organs and systems.


PLOS ONE Editors have been unable to verify the identities, affiliations, contributions and contact email addresses for several of the authors listed on this article [The  article .PLOS ONE Editors were unable to verify the updated affiliations.In response to follow-up queries, corresponding authors Zhendong Zheng and Ji J. Yuan stated that there was an error in the original listed affiliations; specifically, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Georgetown University Medical Center, University of Maryland Medical Center, and University Hospital, University of British Columbia were incorrectly included. Revised affiliation information was provided, but the PLOS ONE Editors retract this article.In light of the above concerns, the JJY did not agree with retraction. ZZ did not respond directly to the retraction decision. GL, HW, TBL, DZS, ZS, SZ, PAP, MLT, GMG, PTM, RSD, AJJ and YMR could not be reached.


To better understand nutrition, food chemistry, and medicine, it is important to investigate biologically active constituents, which requires a detailed knowledge and coverage of the composition of compounds of nutritional and nutraceutical character. The categorization of substances and thus the implementation of specific and dedicated databases have now emerged, based on both analytical data and collected data derived from the literature through a standardized and harmonized approach .Food composition databases aim to produce, collect, and present data in a standardized format to “speak a common language”, which allows the comparison of data from different national databases to foster an exchange and collaboration between countries ,3. SimulThe development of databases of nutrients, bioactive compounds, metabolites and dietary sypplements are key tools for human health and public nutrition and represent resources for a broad range of applications in different fields, i.e. food, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, epidemiology and medicinal areas ,10,11,12The initial construction of a dataset of specific nutrients, bioactive compounds, or bioactive compounds’ class and their inclusion in a specified and standardized database should be monitored. Moreover, an update and expansion of the database for a more comprehensive source of data and information is encouraged. Databases dedicated to particular and characteristic categories of foods are also promoted: traditional, certified, and recipe databases ,14,15,16Hoteit el al. , aiming Beltrá et al.  studied First and foremost, the design and construction of food databases require the exact identification of foods from an adequate food nomenclature and a precise description of the foods. There is a general consensus on the importance of the nomenclature, description, and classification of foods and food groups. A coherent food description system is essential for comparing and/or exchanging data from different databases, and the data of the same nature from different organizations and countries. Moreover, matching procedures for linking different databases should be encouraged .Food composition and other dedicated databases, as well as metabolomic databases and biomarker repositories, represent a unique data resource for nutritionists, dietitians, and researchers for several applications, i.e., dietary assessments, exposure studies, food labeling, epidemiological studies, and clinical trials. Concerning dietary assessment, Witkowska et al.  reportedApplications and the utilization of databases from nutrition- and medicine-related fields in other contexts are explored, and current research trends are defined. Delgado et al.  describe


Among invertebrates, jumping spiders are one of the few groups whose representatives have camera-like eyes, and the only group whose representatives have fovea. The latter is present in the camera-like eyes of representatives of some groups of vertebrates, including humans. Based on the literature data, a comparative analysis of the camera-like eyes of jumping spiders and humans was carried out, in the course of which the similarities and differences in the properties and functions of their basic components were identified. The presented data are necessary for the formation of knowledge about jumping spiders as model animals for studying the functioning of the visual system. Bagheera kiplingi Peckham and Peckham, 1896 [All vertebrates, including humans, and some invertebrates have camera-like eyes. However, not all vertebrates have fovea in their eyes, as in humans. Among invertebrates, it is found only in jumping spiders ,4,5,6,7.am, 1896 , are pream, 1896 ,12.As a rule, jumping spiders have four pairs of camera-like eyes of two species: one pair of principle eyes—antero-median and three pairs of secondary eyes—antero-lateral, postero-median and postero-lateral. Each pair of eyes, in addition to features in location, shape, size and structure, has such individual characteristics as the value of the spatial resolving power, color perception, size of the field of view, light perception and the ability to perceive the depth of space. All of them are necessary for jumping spiders to perform different visual tasks, but it is impossible to combine them in one pair of eyes, for example, as in humans, due to their small size ,14. The Portia fimbriata Doleschell, 1859, is 12.5 cycles/degree and has no analogues among animals with eyes of comparable size [max ≈ 377 nm) and green (λmax ≈ 530 nm) parts of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, as in Menemerus confusus Koch, 1878 [max ≈ 626 nm) part of the spectrum, as in Habronattus pyrrithrix Chamberlin, 1924 [max ≈ 480–500 nm) part of the spectrum, as in Maratus sp. Karsch, 1878 [max ≈ 430 nm), yellow-green (λmax ≈ 530 nm) and yellow-red (λmax ≈ 560 nm) parts of the spectrum [P. fimbriata [Metaphiddipus aeneolus Curtis [M. aeneolus [Hasarius adansoni Audouin, 1826, use their principle eyes to perceive the depth of space due to a unique monocular cue for animals—defocusing images of observed objects on the retina [The principle eyes of jumping spiders are characterized by a high value of the spatial resolving power, color perception, a narrow field of view, a low value of the sensitivity to light and the ability to perceive the depth of space in the same way as the fovea of the human eye, where cones are mainly located ,15,16,17ble size ,20. In mch, 1878 , whereasin, 1924 , and tetch, 1878 . In humaspectrum . Dependiaeneolus . The priaeneolus ,15,16. Je retina . In jumpe retina . Humans e retina ,30.M. aeneolus [Evarcha blancardi Scopoli, 1763 [M. aeneolus [Epiblemum sp. Hentz, 1832 [Epiblemum sp. [max ≈ 535–540 nm) part of the spectrum, as in M. confusus [max ≈ 370 nm) and blue (λmax ≈ 480 nm) parts of the spectrum, as in H. adansoni [max ≈ 510 nm) part of the spectrum [Trite planiceps Simon, 1899, is estimated to be approximately 330° horizontally [In comparison with the principle eyes, the secondary eyes of jumping spiders are characterized by a low value of the spatial resolving power, color perception (only postero-median eyes), a wide field of view, a high value of the sensitivity to light and the ability to perceive the depth of space  as well as the peripheral region of the retina of the human eye, where the rods are mainly located ,15,16,17li, 1763 , in posttz, 1832 , and in emum sp.  . The retina of the principle eyes of jumping spiders and the fovea of the human eye provide the realization of two identical functions: central (form) vision, which is characterized by high spatial resolving power, and color perception. The retina of the secondary eyes of jumping spiders and the peripheral region of the human retina also provide the realization of two identical functions: peripheral vision, which is characterized by a wide field of vision, and light perception. It should be noted that in jumping spiders, the retina of one of the three species of secondary eyes—postero-median eyes—is able to perceive colors ,15,17,66Thus, the retina of jumping spiders and humans has more different properties and performs more of the same functions .I. completa, do not have a pupil, in contrast with light-loving species, such as P. magnifica [T. planiceps [P. magnifica [Depending on the light conditions of the habitats of jumping spiders, the pupil in their eyes is absent or expressed to varying degrees . So, shaagnifica . In the agnifica . Judginglaniceps  and P. magnifica , the pupagnifica . In thesagnifica ,38, in hagnifica . In the agnifica ,38. As magnifica . In humaagnifica ,71,72. Tagnifica . The pupagnifica ,72,74. Tagnifica ,75,76.In jumping spiders and humans, the pupil provides light penetration into the eye ,42. In hThus, the pupil of jumping spiders and humans has more different properties and performs more different functions .M. harfordi [T. planiceps [M. aeneolus [Phidippus johnsoni Peckham and Peckham, 1883 [M. harfordi [T. planiceps [P. magnifica [M. aeneolus and P. johnsoni [M. aeneolus [M. harfordi [P. johnsoni, or 1.41, as in M. aeneolus, in antero-lateral eyes—1.43, as in P. johnsoni, or 1.45, as in M. aeneolus, and in postero-lateral eyes—1.49, as in P. johnsoni, or 1.51, as in M. aeneolus [In jumping spiders, the lens adheres to the cornea and, judging by photographs of eye sections, for example, harfordi  and T. planiceps , occupielaniceps . The lenlaniceps ,68,78,79aeneolus , Phidippharfordi , T. planlaniceps  and P. magnifica , in the johnsoni ,38,40. Tharfordi . In jumpharfordi . The lenaeneolus ,27,79.In jumping spiders and humans, the lens performs several identical functions: light-refracting, light-guiding, shaping, supporting and protective ,15. In jThus, the lens of jumping spiders and humans has more different properties and performs more of the same functions .P. magnifica and S. americana, in the principle eyes, epithelial cells are oriented differently and do not form structured layers [P. magnifica [S. americana [M. harfordi [P. magnifica [In the principle and secondary eyes of jumping spiders and human eyes, the vitreous body lies behind the lens and, in comparison with it, occupies a significant part of the eye cavity  1,27,40,4027,40.d layers . It can agnifica , all epimericana , they aragnifica . In thesagnifica ,40. Theragnifica . In humaagnifica ,80. In bagnifica .In jumping spiders and humans, the vitreous body performs several identical functions: shaping, supporting, protective and light-conducting ,66,72. IThus, the vitreous body of jumping spiders and humans has more of the same properties and performs more of the same functions .A comparative analysis of the principle and secondary camera-like eyes of jumping spiders and human camera-like eyes, carried out on the basis of literature data, made it possible to identify the similarities and differences in the properties and functions of their basic components. The outer shell of the eyes and the vitreous body have more of the same properties, while the inner shell of the eyes, the pupil and the lens—on the contrary—have more different properties. The outer and inner shells of the eyes, the lens and the vitreous body perform more of the same functions, while the pupil—on the contrary—more different functions. In general, of the five components considered of the principle and secondary camera-like eyes of jumping spiders and human camera-like eyes, the outer shell of the eyes, the lens and the vitreous body show more similarities, the inner shell of the eyes and the pupil—more differences.


As a common mental disease, depression seriously affects people’s physical and mental health. According to the statistics of the World Health Organization, depression is one of the main reasons for suicide and self-harm events in the world. Therefore, strengthening depression detection can effectively reduce the occurrence of suicide or self-harm events so as to save more people and families. With the development of computer technology, some researchers are trying to apply natural language processing techniques to detect people who are depressed automatically. Many existing feature engineering methods for depression detection are based on emotional characteristics, but these methods do not consider high-level emotional semantic information. The current deep learning methods for depression detection cannot accurately extract effective emotional semantic information.In this paper, we propose an emotion-based attention network, including a semantic understanding network and an emotion understanding network, which can capture the high-level emotional semantic information effectively to improve the depression detection task.The semantic understanding network module is used to capture the contextual semantic information. The emotion understanding network module is used to capture the emotional semantic information. There are two units in the emotion understanding network module, including a positive emotion understanding unit and a negative emotion understanding unit, which are used to capture the positive emotional information and the negative emotional information, respectively. We further proposed a dynamic fusion strategy in the emotion understanding network module to fuse the positive emotional information and the negative emotional information.We evaluated our method on the Reddit data set. The experimental results showed that the proposed emotion-based attention network model achieved an accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure of 91.30%, 91.91%, 96.15%, and 93.98%, respectively, which are comparable results compared with state-of-the-art methods.The experimental results showed that our model is competitive with the state-of-the-art models. The semantic understanding network module, the emotion understanding network module, and the dynamic fusion strategy are effective modules for depression detection. In addition, the experimental results verified that the emotional semantic information was effective in depression detection. As defined in the free dictionary, depression refers to the act of depressing or state of being depressed. Depression is usually regarded as one type of mood disorder; the main clinical feature of depression is the significant and persistent mood depression. The depressed patients’ emotion can range from gloomy to grief, low self-esteem, and even to pessimism, which may cause suicidal attempts or behaviors . The WorWith the development of the internet in people’s daily life, people began to share their feelings and problems on social media ,4 such aThe goal of depression detection is to classify a person or a post as depressed or not. The performance of depression detection on social media can help with the clinical treatment of depression. This problem needs to be solved. The posts of patients with depression usually contain strong emotions. We give three examples of the textual posts left on Reddit, including two depression-indicative posts and one standard post as follows.Example 1: “Today, I feel so horrible, it makes me want to die I made a fool of myself at work, felt so stupid after the meeting so I left work, told the boss I’m sick. Spent the remaining afternoon in bed.” Label: depressionExample 2: “That feeling when you hate who you are as a person but can’t get yourself to change because you are so used to being like this for the past several years. I’ve become a shitty person. The thought of change seems impossible to me at this point.” Label: depressionExample 3: “Looking for cool ways to tell parents my wife is pregnant.” Label: nondepressionhorrible, die, and stupid, express strong negative emotions of the author. The words hate and shitty in example 2 also express the author’s strong negative emotions. Example 3 shows the post of a regular user. It does not contain strong negative emotions. As previously mentioned, emotional semantic information usually provides us useful clues for depression detection.Examples 1 and 2 contain strong emotional information made by the patients with depression. From example 1, the words, including . The percentage of negative emotion words was similar. In addition, we calculated the percentages of emotion words in the depression-indicative posts and the standard posts. The depressed users used more negative words than the nondepressed users. At the same time, they used less positive words in their posts than the nondepressed users. It can be concluded from the statistical results that the emotional semantic information may play an effective role for the depression detection task.We also counted the proportion of the positive words and the negative words that appeared in the depression-indicative posts and the standard posts of the Reddit data set , respectDetecting depression automatically has made some progress. Many existing models detect depression based on the feature engineering such as bag of words ,8, latenBefore introducing our model and to understand our paper more conveniently, we give several definitions of concepts, including high-level emotional semantic information, semantic understanding network (SUN), emotion understanding network (EUN), and dynamic fusion strategy.High-level emotional semantic information denotes the emotional semantic information that is captured by deep learning.SUN is a deep learning method that is used to capture the contextual semantic information in the text for depression detection.EUN is a deep learning method that is used to capture the emotional semantic information in the text for depression detection.Dynamic fusion strategy denotes a fusion strategy that can fuse positive emotional information and negative emotional information dynamically.To extract the emotional information effectively, we propose an emotion-based attention network (EAN) for depression detection. Our EAN model mainly contains two modules, including a SUN and an EUN. The SUN module is used to capture the contextual semantic information, which has been widely used in NLP. The EUN module is used to capture the emotional information because the emotional information plays an important role for depression detection as previously mentioned. As shown in The main contributions of this paper can be summarized as follows:We propose a new deep learning framework for depression detection. We also design a special module to explicitly extract the high-level emotion information for depression detection in our framework.We take into consideration the positive emotion information and the negative emotion information simultaneously. At the same time, we apply a dynamic fusion strategy to fuse the positive emotion information and the negative information.We conduct experiments on the Reddit data set for depression detection. The experiments show our model can get state-of-the-art or comparable performance. The ablation study also verifies the effectiveness of the components proposed in our model.In this section, we review the related work about depression detection on social media.In recent years, with the development of social media, more and more people are willing to post their thoughts, emotions, or life details on social media, including Reddit, Twitter, and so on. Park et al  showed tDe Choudhury et al  collecteMost of the existing methods for depression detection are based on feature engineering. LIWC is usually used to extract individual psychological states, such as positive and negative emotions, pronouns, and so on. Therefore, LIWC was often used for the depression detection task ,12-14. KShneidman  presenteDifferent from traditional feature engineering-based methods, deep learning methods mostly apply end-to-end models. Yates et al  proposedAccording to previous research on depression detection, it can be concluded that the emotional information is important in the task of depression detection. In addition, deep learning can take high-level semantic information into account, but the current deep learning methods for depression detection still lack effective extraction of the emotional semantic information. Thus, we propose a deep learning model to consider the high-level emotional information that is captured by the deep learning method for depression detection, which is named the EAN.The structure of this paper is organized as follows. The Introduction section introduced the background and related work. The Methods section shows the details of the proposed model. The Results section gives the experiments in this paper. The Discussion section shows the conclusions and future work.As a newly developed social media, Reddit has become a widely popular web-based discussion forum. Reddit users can discuss a variety of topics on this web-based platform anonymously. The topics discussed on the platform can be arranged in more than a million discussion groups. Due to the large amount of discussion text, Reddit attracts many researchers to conduct their studies with the data on the Reddit platform. Pirina and Çöltekin  built a We preprocessed the Reddit data set, such as removing the stop words. We then counted the occurrence number of each word for the depression-indicative posts and the standard posts. We sorted the words according to the statistics and show the top of the word lists in As shown in Depression-indicative postsAll text: i’m, like, feel, want, get, know, even, really, people, life, i’ve, one, time, think, would, never, depression, me, can’t, go, going, things, don’t, much, friends, make, good, it, still, could, back, anyone, years, anything, always, every, got, someone, fucking, help, day, see, something, work, ever, need, feeling, everything, talk, yearPositive: friends, good, work, help, better, happy, job, love, hard, friend, family, care, wanted, best, sleep, sure, self, mind, understand, new, mental, hope, social, money, high, remember, working, reason, okay, close, real, together, great, normal, deal, believe, change, enjoy, birthday, honestly, nice, motivation, advice, loved, therapist, happiness, fun, boyfriend, saying, bigNegative: depression, depressed, bad, fucking, nothing, alone, hate, shit, stop, lost, worse, anxiety, fuck, tired, sad, die, suicide, kill, relationship, wrong, pain, suicidal, problems, old, sorry, cry, lonely, therapy, hurt, stupid, constantly, issues, sick, crying, problem, afraid, weird, reddit, hospital, worst, hang, illness, dead, scared, dark, broken, shitty, broke, miserable, diedStandard postsAll text: like, i’m, know, friend, would, feel, really, friends, want, time, get, one, even, said, always, never, told, got, family, go, things, me, think, best, make, mom, going, people, years, talk, also, still, back, something, much, see, say, could, i’ve, dad, tell, since, don’t, started, us, me, it, made, help, parentsPositive: friend, friends, family, best, sister, help, friendship, work, brother, good, new, sure, love, wanted, saying, together, advice, father, close, money, boyfriend, kids, care, hard, better, mad, understand, job, basically, happy, great, deal, child, high, moved, believe, fun, social, mind, baby, conversation, eventually, reason, married, big, change, spend, real, normal, niceNegative: bad, wrong, nothing, old, hang, problem, stop, hurt, upset, sorry, shit, issues, lost, alone, cut, angry, hate, problems, worse, depression, weird, sick, constantly, anxiety, sad, tired, annoyed, broke, bitch, scared, died, hell, afraid, crying, cancer, toxic, ignore, pregnant, lose, difficult, wait, fault, depressed, horrible, awkward, selfish, reply, fuck, confused, redditIn this section, we introduce the proposed model for depression detection briefly, which is called the EAN, as shown in The SUN was used to capture the contextual semantic information in the text for depression detection. There are three layers in the SUN module, including the word encoding layer, context encoding layer, and attention mechanism (Att) layer. We will introduce these three layers in more details.w1, w2, ..., nw}, where n denotes the length of the text, and iw denotes the word in the text. In NLP tasks, words are usually mapped to the form of word vectors. Inspired by it, we also encoded every word into d-dimension word vector. We applied the pretrained Global Vectors for Word Representation (GloVe) .Where midhuber , and theH1, H2, ..., nH]. The Att is used to assign higher weights on the important words. We applied the Att to capture the important words in the depression-indicative posts for the depression detection task. The operations of the Att are based on the following equations:The input of the Att layer is H = . It can be trained during the training. We can get the output emoh of the EUN module with the following formula:The goal of the emotion fusion layer is to fuse the positive emotional information and the negative emotional information for depression detection. We get the positive emotional information atth from the SUN module and the emotional semantic information emoh from the EUN module. In this section, we applied a concatenation operation to fuse the contextual semantic information atth and the emotional semantic information emoh as the final representation finalf:As previously described, we get the contextual semantic information Accordingly, the final classification decision for depression detection is formulated by the softmax function:The cross-entropy loss was used for depression detection in our model. The training goal was to minimize the loss.The unit size of Bi-LSTM in our experiments was 64. We applied the pretrained 300-dimension word embedding (GloVe) in the word encoding layer. In addition, the optimization function was Adam, and the batch size was 128. Following Tadesse et al [We applied the standard metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, to evaluate the effectiveness of our model for depression detection. F1 is defined as follows:We compared the results of our model with many state-of-the-art methods on the Reddit data set. We compared it with the baselines, including LIWC, LDA, unigram, bigram, LIWC + LDA + unigram, LIWC + LDA + bigram , LSTM, BLIWC: Tadesse et al  extracteLDA: Tadesse et al  extracteUnigram: Tadesse et al  extracteBigram: Tadesse et al  extracteLIWC + LDA + unigram: The model is based on the aforementioned characteristics, including LIWC, LDA, and unigram, for depression detection.LIWC + LDA + bigram: The model is based on the aforementioned characteristics, including LIWC, LDA, and bigram, for depression detection.LSTM: LSTM was proposed by Hochreiter and Schmidhuber . We applBi-LSTM: The Bi-LSTM was proposed by Graves et al . We applBi-LSTM + Att: The model is based on Bi-LSTM and the Att.EAN: This model is proposed in this paper, which considers emotional semantic information based on deep learning.As shown in The results based on bigram (bigram and LIWC + LDA + bigram) were higher than unigram (unigram and LIWC + LDA + unigram). It can be concluded that contextual information can improve the results of the model. The results based on Bi-LSTM were higher than LSTM. it can be concluded that considering bidirectional contextual semantic information is necessary. The results based on Bi-LSTM + Att were higher than Bi-LSTM; it can be proven that the Att is effective for the depression detection task. The proposed EAN model got the higher results because we took into consideration both the contextual semantic information and the emotional semantic information.In this section, we analyze the effectiveness of the two modules (SUN and EUN), the effectiveness of different emotional semantic information, and the effectiveness of the dynamic fusion strategy.To verify the effectiveness of SUN and EUN, we designed a series of experiments. SUN means the proposed EAN model without the EUN module. EUN means the proposed EAN model without the SUN module. As shown in P value, ACC value, and F1 value. From the experiments, our proposed EAN model obtained the best result compared to the three aforementioned baseline models. It also verified the effectiveness of each proposed module in our framework.To verify the effectiveness of different emotional semantic information, we designed a series of experiments, including without emotion (SUN), without positive emotion (SUN + negative), and without negative emotion (SUN + positive). As shown in To verify the effectiveness of the dynamic fusion strategy, we designed a series of experiments including the EAN model with the concatenate fusion strategy, the EAN model with the fixed fusion strategy, and the EAN model with the dynamic fusion strategy. The EAN (concatenate fusion) model applies the concatenate operation in the emotion fusion strategy. The EAN (fixed fusion) model applies the fixed fusion operation in the emotion fusion layer. The θ in equation 10 is fixed at 0.5. The EAN (dynamic fusion) model is the model proposed in this paper. As shown in In this section, we designed a series of experiments to verify the effectiveness of the proposed EAN model, including the two modules in the EAN model, the different emotional semantic information, and the dynamic fusion method.Some visualization results of the θ to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed dynamic fusion strategy intuitively are shown in Depression attracts more and more attention from people and organizations now. With the development of computer technology, some researchers are trying to use computers to automatically identify people who are depressed. In this paper, we proposed an EAN model to explicitly extract the high-level emotion information for the depression detection task. The proposed EAN model consists of the SUN and the EUN. In the proposed model, we took into consideration the positive emotion information and the negative emotion information simultaneously. At the same time, we applied a dynamic fusion strategy to fuse the positive emotion information and the negative information. The experimental results verified that the emotional semantic information is effective in depression detection.According to WHO statistics, depression is one of the main causes of suicide in the world. We will focus on the relationship between depression and suicide. We will try to combine suicide detection with depression detection in our future work to improve the performance of both tasks by multitask learning. In addition, the future work will be combined with self-reported depressive symptoms or clinical diagnosis. Hopefully, our study can provide some technical supports in the field of health care.


Instead of “Faculty of Sciences, University of Masaryk, Brno, Czechia”, it should be “Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia”.In the published article, there was an error in The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.


The second and third authors, Biao Lu and Yu Liu, were not listed as co-first-authors in the article as published originally.The Author Contributions statement, published originally read “FL and RC conceived the study design, managed the study, conducted the data analysis, and wrote the manuscript. CS helped with the data analysis and editing of the manuscript. LX, BL, YL, YZ, HW, XH, PH, QZ, YLL, KY, KW, ZG, ZL, JY, HXZ, HZ, ZJ, YJL, NW, CY, JYY, LY, FH, and QY are site investigators and conducted the study in each participating center. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version”. The corrected Author Contributions statement is as follows: “FL and RC conceived the study design, managed the study, conducted the data analysis, and wrote the manuscript. CS helped with the data analysis and editing of the manuscript. BL and YL contributed to the design of the study protocol, training of trial investigators. LX, BL, YL, YZ, HW, XH, PH, QZ, YLL, KY, KW, ZG, ZL, JY, HXZ, HZ, ZJ, YJL, NW, CY, JYY, LY, FH, and QY are site investigators and conducted the study in each participating center. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.”The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


These authors should be included because they organized and led the collection of the field data, and they also reviewed and approved the manuscript.Following publication of the article , it was The author list has been corrected in the published manuscript and the correct author list can be found in this correction article. Likewise, the ‘Authors’ contributions’ statement has been updated in the original article and can be seen in this correction:Authors' contributionsMB, SI, and DD designed the field collection protocols; MB, PM, SI, DD, FG, EG, SC, HT, MM, and MY oversaw the collection of data; MB, GY, EA, DG, SY, AW, AG, EE, TA, DE, SD, MYoh, and WL collected the field data; DY conducted the laboratory work; SI, SZ, and MB analyzed and interpreted the data; MB, SI, and SZ wrote the first draft of the manuscript. DD, MY, and GY provided a critical revision of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.The authors thank you for reading this correction and apologize for any inconvenience caused.


In the originally published article, affiliations 1 and 4 were presented incorrectly.Affiliation 1 was presented as “Department of Head Neck and Thyroid Surgery, Henan Cancer Hospital, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China”; it should be “Department of Head Neck and Thyroid Surgery, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Henan Cancer Hospital, Zhengzhou, Henan, China”Affiliation 4 was presented as “Department of Radiation Oncology, Henan Cancer Hospital, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China”; it should be“Department of Radiation Oncology, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Henan Cancer Hospital, Zhengzhou, Henan, China”.The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.