Objective To evaluate the role of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)-dependent autophagic signaling pathway in ketamine-induced reduction of diabetic neuropathic pain (DNP) in rats.Methods Sixty male Wistar rats,aged 3 months,weighing 200-250 g,were equally randomized into 5 groups using a random number table:control group (C group),normal saline group (NS group),ketamine group (K group),ketamine + Compound C group (KC group),and ketamine + 3-methyladenine (3-MA) group (KM group).DNP model was established by intraperitoneal injection of streptozocin (STZ)65 mg/kg in anesthetized rats.Four weeks later,the equal volume of normal saline,ketamine 10 mg/kg,ketamine 10 mg/kg + Compound C1 mg/kg,and ketamine + 3-MA 2 μl were injected intraperitoneally once a day for 7 consecutive days in NS,K,KC and KM groups,respectively.The mechanical paw withdrawal threshold (MWT) was measured on 8th day.The rats were then sacrificed,and the lunbar segment (L1-5) of the spinal cord was removed for determination of the expression of AMPKαt,Beclin-1,microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain (LC) 3B (by Western blot) and dendritic spine density in the dorsal root ganglia.Results Compared with group C,the MWT,expression of AMPKα,Beclin-1,and LC3B,and dendritic spine density were significantly decreased in group NS (P＜0.05).Compared with group NS,the MWT,expression of AMPKαt,Beclin-1,and LC3B,and dendritic spine density were significantly increased in group K (P＜0.05).Compared with group K,the MWT,expression of AMPKα,Beclin-1,and LC3B,and dendritic spine density were significantly decreased in KC and KM groups (P＜0.05).Conclusion Activation of AMPK-dependent autophagic pathway is involved in ketamine-induced reduction of DNP in rats.

OBJECTIVETo explore the expression of Ghrelin and high mobility group protein B1 (HMGB1) in the serum and the intestinal tissue of sepsis model rats, and to evaluate the effect of electro-acupuncture (EA) at Zusanli (ST36) on the expression of HMGB1 and Ghrelin.

METHODSForty-eight male Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups, i.e., the sham-operation (sham), the cecal ligation and puncture group (CLP), the CLP + EA at Zusanli (ST36) group (EA), and the CLP + Ghrelin receptor blocking agent + EA group (GHSRA), 12 in each group. A sepsis rat model was prepared by CLP. The incision of the abdominal wall was immediately sutured along the ventral midline for rats in the Sham group. In the EA group EA at Zusanli (ST36) was performed 20 min after CLP surgery with the constant voltage (2 - 100 Hz, 2 mA) for 30 min. In the GHSRA group, Ghrelin receptor blocking agent, [D-Arg1, D-Phe5, D-Trp79, Leu11]-substance P (700 nmol/kg), was administered through intravenous injection immediately after CLP, and 20 min later, EA at Zusanli (ST36) was performed in the same way as for rats in the EA group. Blood samples were withdrawn 12 h after CLP. The serum levels of Ghrelin and HMGB1 were detected using ELISA. Ghrelin expressions and the number of Ghrelin immunopositive cell in the jejunum were determined by immunohistochemistry. HMGB1 contents of the jejunum tissue were detected by Western blotting.

RESULTSCompared with the Sham group, the number of serum immunopositive cells and the expression of HMGB1 in the jejunum tissue significantly increased and levels of Ghrelin and the expression rate of immunopositive cells significantly decreased in the CLP group (P < 0.05). Compared with the CLP group, the number of serum immunopositive cells and the expression of HMGB1 in the jejunum tissue significantly decreased, but levels of Ghrelin and the expression rate of immunopositive cells significantly increased in the EA group (P < 0.05). Compared with the EA group, the number of serum immunopositive cells and the expression of HMGB1 in the jejunum tissue significantly increased in the GHSRA group (P < 0.05), but there was no statistical difference in levels of Ghrelin between the two groups (P > 0.05). The serum level of HMGB1 was negatively correlated with Ghrelin in the Sham group, the CLP group, and the EA group (r = -0. 528, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONSEA at Zusanli (ST36) could inhibit the expression of HMGB1 in the jejunum of septic rats, and promote the expression of Ghrelin. The expression of HMGB1 was inhibited by Ghrelin receptor blocking agent, which suggested that the anti-inflammation of EA at Zusanli (ST36) might be associated with Ghrelin.

Animals ; Disease Models, Animal ; Electroacupuncture ; Ghrelin ; metabolism ; HMGB1 Protein ; metabolism ; Jejunum ; metabolism ; Male ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Sepsis ; metabolism

Objective To investigate the correlation between elasticity obtained with acoustic radiation force impulse(ARFI) and blood perfusion obtained with contrast enhanced ultrasound(CEUS) in renal carcinoma.Methods Tweenty-four patients with renal carcinoma confirmed by operation and pathology underwent ARFI and CEUS sequentially,got preliminary information of elasticity,size and border with virtual touch tissue imaging (VTI),shear wave velocity (SWV) of tumor and renal cortex at least 2centimeters from the tumor margin were measured with virtual touch tissue quantification (VTQ),and then the imaging characteristics were analyzed with time intensity curve (TIC).The elasticity obtained with ARFI were compared with the blood perfusion obtained with CEUS.ResultsTotally 24 cases included 18 renal cell carcinomas,3 papillary renal cell carcinomas,2 chromophobe cell renal carcinomas and 1 rena1collecting duct carcinoma.In VTI,18 appeared darker,4 appeared brighter,and 2 had the same brightness as renal cortex.The SWV of tumor and renal cortex were (2.47±0.61)m/s,(2.10±0.94) m/s,respectively,19 were stiffer than renal cortex (79.2％),among which 18 appeared hyper-enhancement and 1 appeared hypo-enhancement;5 were softer than renal cortex (20.8％),among which 2 appeared hyper-enhancement and 3 appeared hypo-enhancement in CEUS.Tumors with different elasticity had different enhancement,stiff cases appeared hyper-enhancement,soft cases appeared hypo-enhancement (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions There is correlation between elasticity obtained with ARFI and blood perfusion obtained with CEUS in renal carcinoma

Objective To investigate the metabolic changes and the metabolites distribution of different hippocampal regions (head,body and tail)in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD)using 1 H-MRS for early diagnosis.Methods The hippocampal multivoxel 1H-MRS at 3.0 T was scanned in 30 patients with AD and other 30 normal cognitive elders (NC)as contrast.The data obtained were processed at a workstation.The hippocampus was divided into 3 parts (head,body and tail),and the ratios of N-acetylaspartate (NAA)/creatine (Cr),myoinositol (MI)/Cr and MI/NAA were calculated respectively.The metabolite ratios and distribution changes were compared between group AD and NC.Results Compared with the group NC,the NAA/Cr in group AD in bilateral hippocampal body and tail was decreased,whereas the MI/Cr and MI/NAA in bilateral body and tail,MI/NAA in left head were opposite (P<0.01).In group NC,the NAA/Cr was gradually decreased from the bilateral hippocampal heads to tails (P<0.01),however,the MI/NAA was opposite (P<0.01).No distribution differences in every metabolic ratios of bilateral hippocam-pus were found in AD group (P>0.05).Conclusion Metabolic changes and disappearance of the normal distribution in different hippocampal regions detected by 1 H-MRS provide helpful clues for early diagnosis of the AD.

OBJECTIVETo explore the effective method of the prevention and treatment of procedural pain in dressing changes of burn wounds.

METHODSNinety patients of burn injury were randomized into 3 groups, 30 cases in each one. In the group A, fentanyl citrate injection was used at corresponding injury area, jiaogan (AH6a, sympathetic nerve), fei (CO14, lung), neifenmi (CO18, endocrine) on ear, 0.25 mL at each point. In the group B, fentanyl citrate injection was applied subcutaneously in the deltoid muscle, 1 mL. In the group C, 0.9% sodium chloride injection was applied subcutaneously in the deltoid muscle, 1 mL. The visual analogue scale (VAS) was used to evaluate the analgesic effect before, during and 10 min after dressing change in the patients of the three groups separately.

RESULTSIt was not different in VAS score before dressing change among the three groups (P> 0.05). Compared with that before dressing change, the pain was not significant and VAS score was not different during and after dressing change in the patients of the group A (both P>0.05), but the score in the patients of the group B and C was different significantly (all P<0.05). The VAS score during and after dressing change in the group A was lower than that in the group B and C (all P<0.05), and the score in the group B was lower than that in the group C (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONFentanyl injection of small dose at auricular points achieves definite analgesic effect on procedural pain in dressing changes of burn wounds, superior to subcutaneous injection of fentanyl.

Acupuncture Points ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Burns ; complications ; therapy ; Female ; Fentanyl ; administration & dosage ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Pain ; drug therapy ; etiology ; Pain Measurement ; Young Adult

Most chemical medicines have polymorphs. The difference of medicine polymorphs in physicochemical properties directly affects the stability, efficacy, and safety of solid medicine products. Polymorphs is incomparably important to pharmaceutical chemistry, manufacturing, and control. Meantime polymorphs is a key factor for the quality of high-end drug and formulations. Polymorph prediction technology can effectively guide screening of trial experiments, and reduce the risk of missing stable crystal form in the traditional experiment. Polymorph prediction technology was firstly based on theoretical calculations such as quantum mechanics and computational chemistry, and then was developed by the key technology of machine learning using the artificial intelligence. Nowadays, the popular trend is to combine the advantages of theoretical calculation and machine learning to jointly predict crystal structure. Recently, predicting medicine polymorphs has still been a challenging problem. It is expected to learn from and integrate existing technologies to predict medicine polymorphs more accurately and efficiently.

Taking Doctor HUANG Shi-ping as the representative, the school of Huang's golden needle is based on Chinese martial art. Golden needles are adopted as main tool. Attaching great importance on the combination of acupuncture and moxibustioin, it is also characterized with penetrating needling with long needles. Through the development of three generations, it once outshone other schools in the field of acupuncture, and became famous all over the world. It made great contribution to the development of the course of acupuncture. However, with the development of the history, the form of acupuncture education as well as apparatus were all undergone an unified reform. Therefore, Doctor HUANG Shi-ping's acupuncture school be lost gradually.
Acupuncture ; education ; history ; Acupuncture Therapy ; history ; instrumentation ; methods ; China ; History, 19th Century ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Schools

Objective To analyze the patterns of cortical atrophy of the two subtypes of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD ),behavioural-vsriant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD ) and primary progressive aphasia (PPA).And to compare them with that of Alzheimer disease (AD) to provide an objective basis for early diagnosis and differential diagnosis.MethodsA total of 83 patients were enrolled in this study and there were 30 patients with cognitively normal controls (CN),30 with AD and 23 with FTLD (10 with bvFTD,13 with PPA).Philips 3.0 T TX scanner and 8 channel head coil was employed.Three dimensional turbo fast echo(3D-TFE)T1WI sequence with high resolution was used to collect the volume data of gray matter.3D-TFE T1 WI images were normalized and segmented into gray matter map for statistical analysis by SPM 8 and VBM 8.The false discovery rate (FDR) was adopted in P value adjustment,P ＜ 0.001,and the cluster size was set at 5.The full width at half maximum (FWHM ) was set at 4 mm for the smoothing.Paired t test was used for statistics.ResultsIn bvFTD,PPA and AD groups,there were diffuse regions with reduced volume in cerebral cortex and subcortical structures (such as the hippocampus,the amygdala,the caudate nuclei,et al).The most obvious atrophic region in bvFTD and PPA group was found in the frontotemporal.Compared with AD,gray matter atrophy in bvFTD was found in brain regions including bilateral temporal lobes,bilateral superior temporal pole gyri,bilateral middle temporal pole gyri,right fusiform gyrus and bilateral frontal lobes.Among them,temporal and frontal lobes atrophy had obvious right partial lateralizing,with 14 301 voxels in right temporal lobe and 5105 in left (t =-5.03,P＜0.05).The number of atrophy voxels in right and left frontal lobe were 1344 and 125 (t =3.45,P ＜0.05).The left temporooccipital lobe atrophy was more obvious than the right in PPA,with 15 637 voxels in left and 10 723 in right ( t =- 2.65,P ＜ 0.05 ).ConclusionsThere are different brain gray matter atrophy patterns in bvFD,PPA and AD.Among them,bvFTD has asymmetric right frontal and temporal lobe atrophy,which may be related to characteristic personality changes.On the other hand,the asymmetric atrophy in left temporooccipital lobe may be responsible for the aphasis of patients with PPA.

Objective To evaluate the outcome of posterior screw-rod fixation system in reduction and internal fixation of atlantoaxial dislocation. Methods A retrospective study was done on 27 patients with atlantoaxial instability including 18 male and 9 female (at age range of 13-51 years, mean 31 years) from January 2007 to May 2009. There were 11 patients with chronic odontoid fractures, five with isolated bone odontoid, seven with transverse ligament rupture of atlas and four with rheumatoid arthritis. Skeletal reduction was performed in all the patients. The anterior atlantodens interval (ADI)ranged from 8 mm to 15 mm, average 11 mm. All the patients underwent an intraoperative reduction by posterior C1 lateral mass and C2 pedicle screws with rod fixation. According to American Spine Injury Association (ASIA) impairment scale, there were eight patients at grade B, 15 at grade C and four at grade D. Results All patients were followed up for 6-24 months (average 13 months), which showed that the neck symptoms were improved, with bony union. The ADI was reduced to 2-4 mm (average 2.8 mm)postoperatively. Postoperative ASIA scale was grade C in four patients, grade D in 12 and grade E in 11.There were no neurologic or vascular complications occurred, or no failure of the internal fixtors, pseudarthrosis or instability. Conclusion Posterior screw-rod fixation system has advantages of simple procedures, few complications and good results and can be used for intraoperative reduction of atlantoaxial dislocation.

Objective:To explore whether there were changes in midbrain morphology related to motor function in patients with cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD).Methods:The study was conducted on a subset of patients with CSVD registered at the Department of Neurology of Peking Union Medical College Hospital from 2010 to 2018. All magnetic resonance imaging images were taken with a 3.0 T nuclear magnetic resonance imager. The measurement of anteroposterior diameter of the mesencephalon and the tegmentum of mesencephalon was performed on a personal computer with the image processing software RadiAnt DICOM Viewer. Several clinical manifestations of dyspraxia, dysphagia, dysarthria and dysuria were evaluated by interviewing the patient and family members living with the patient. Kinect depth camera combined with self-developed software platform was used to conduct quantitative evaluation of patients′ motor function. Three parameters, namely walking speed, walking time of three meters and time of standing up and sitting down, were selected from the obtained parameters. SPSS 17.0 software was used for statistical analysis.Results:A total of 176 patients were included, aged 30-88 (64.16±11.57) years. One hundred and fifteen patients were males, accounting for 65.34%. In patients with CSVD, anteroposterior diameter of the mesencephalon and the tegmentum of mesencephalon were negatively correlated with age ( B=-0.032, P<0.001; B=-0.020, P=0.006). The anteroposterior diameter of the mesencephalon was negatively correlated with symptoms of dyskinesia ( OR=0.006, 95% CI 0-0.135, P=0.001), even when the age and gender were adjusted ( OR=0.014,95% CI 0-0.416, P=0.013). The anteroposterior diameter of the mesencephalon was negatively correlated with symptoms of dysuria ( OR=0.046,95% CI 0.002-0.936, P=0.045), but no longer correlated when the age and gender were adjusted. The anteroposterior diameter of tegmentum of mesencephalo was also negatively correlated with symptoms of dyskinesia ( OR=0.035,95% CI 0.002-0.684, P=0.027), but no longer correlated after adjusting for age and gender. Video recording and evaluation of motor function were performed on 87 patients. Spearman correlation analysis showed that none of the three motor function scores was correlated with age or gender. The anteroposteric diameter of the midbrain was positively correlated with walking speed ( r=0.231 ,P=0.040) and negatively correlated with walking time of three meters ( r=-0.304, P=0.005), but not with standing up and sitting down time, while the anteroposteric diameter of tegmentum of mesencephalo was not correlated with all of them. Conclusion:There are changes in mesencephalon morphology in patients with CSVD, structural parameters of mesencephalon are related to motor function and urination function, and mesencephalon atrophy may be an independent related factor for symptoms of dyskinesia in patients with CSVD.