The neurochemical features of the nitrergic and peptidergic innervation of the porcine esophagus were investigated by means of immunohistochemical methods combined with vagotomy. Neuronal cell bodies in both the submucosal and the myenteric plexus (MP) were detected immunoreactivities for nNOS, VIP, GAL, NPY, PACAP, L-ENK, SP, 5-HT and CB, while CGRP- and SOM-immunoreactive (ir) somata were not encountered. In addition, nNOS- and CB-ir myenteric neurons constituted the separate enteric subpopulations.Double immunostainings with a general neuronal marker (PGP9.5 ) and the specific markers, such as nNOS, VIP and SP revealed (1)nNOS-ir myenteric neurons in the porcine esophagus accounted for a higher percentage (63 % ) of all esophageal intrinsic PGP9.5-ir neurons in comparison of VIP-ir (36%) and SP-ir populations (28%); (2) An increasing rostrocaudal gradient in the number of myenteric neurons per ganglion as well as a significantly higher number of enteric ganglia within both plexuses in the abdominal segment; ( 3 ) The densest nerve fibers within the esophageal musculature were VIP-/GAL-/NPY-ir, some of which also co-expressed nNOS and/or PACAP immunoreactivity. The number of L-ENK- and/or SP-ir fibers was significantly higher in lamina muscularis mucosae ( LMM ) than in tunica muscularis externa (TME). In contrast to reports in other species, CGRP-ir fibers within the porcine esophagus constituted a very limited population and were extrinsic; (4) Vagotomy experiments revealed an obvious decrease of PACAP-and 5-HT-ir nerve fibers within the MP,suggesting that these fibers originate from the vagal nerve, while these nNOS- and/or VIP-/GAL-/NPY-ir fibers innervating both the TME and the LMM did not appear to be significantly affected by the vagotomy procedure, possibly being the intrinsic origin.

Animals ; Carcinoma, Neuroendocrine ; metabolism ; pathology ; physiopathology ; Carcinoma, Small Cell ; metabolism ; pathology ; physiopathology ; Cell Differentiation ; Chromogranin A ; metabolism ; Humans ; Male ; Neuroendocrine Cells ; metabolism ; pathology ; Prostatic Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; physiopathology

Fetal electrocardiogram (ECG) signals provide important clinical information for early diagnosis and intervention of fetal abnormalities. In this paper, we propose a new method for fetal ECG signal extraction and analysis. Firstly, an improved fast independent component analysis method and singular value decomposition algorithm are combined to extract high-quality fetal ECG signals and solve the waveform missing problem. Secondly, a novel convolutional neural network model is applied to identify the QRS complex waves of fetal ECG signals and effectively solve the waveform overlap problem. Finally, high quality extraction of fetal ECG signals and intelligent recognition of fetal QRS complex waves are achieved. The method proposed in this paper was validated with the data from the PhysioNet computing in cardiology challenge 2013 database of the Complex Physiological Signals Research Resource Network. The results show that the average sensitivity and positive prediction values of the extraction algorithm are 98.21% and 99.52%, respectively, and the average sensitivity and positive prediction values of the QRS complex waves recognition algorithm are 94.14% and 95.80%, respectively, which are better than those of other research results. In conclusion, the algorithm and model proposed in this paper have some practical significance and may provide a theoretical basis for clinical medical decision making in the future.
Algorithms ; Neural Networks, Computer ; Electrocardiography ; Databases, Factual ; Fetus

At present, the incidence of Parkinson's disease (PD) is gradually increasing. This seriously affects the quality of life of patients, and the burden of diagnosis and treatment is increasing. However, the disease is difficult to intervene in early stage as early monitoring means are limited. Aiming to find an effective biomarker of PD, this work extracted correlation between each pair of electroencephalogram (EEG) channels for each frequency band using weighted symbolic mutual information and k-means clustering. The results showed that State1 of Beta frequency band ( P = 0.034) and State5 of Gamma frequency band ( P = 0.010) could be used to differentiate health controls and off-medication Parkinson's disease patients. These findings indicated that there were significant differences in the resting channel-wise correlation states between PD patients and healthy subjects. However, no significant differences were found between PD-on and PD-off patients, and between PD-on patients and healthy controls. This may provide a clinical diagnosis reference for Parkinson's disease.
Humans ; Parkinson Disease/diagnosis* ; Quality of Life ; Cluster Analysis ; Electroencephalography ; Healthy Volunteers

The increasing prevalence of the aging population, and inadequate and uneven distribution of medical resources, have led to a growing demand for telemedicine services. Gait disturbance is a primary symptom of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD). This study proposed a novel approach for the quantitative assessment and analysis of gait disturbance from two-dimensional (2D) videos captured using smartphones. The approach used a convolutional pose machine to extract human body joints and a gait phase segmentation algorithm based on node motion characteristics to identify the gait phase. Moreover, it extracted features of the upper and lower limbs. A height ratio-based spatial feature extraction method was proposed that effectively captures spatial information. The proposed method underwent validation via error analysis, correction compensation, and accuracy verification using the motion capture system. Specifically, the proposed method achieved an extracted step length error of less than 3 cm. The proposed method underwent clinical validation, recruiting 64 patients with Parkinson's disease and 46 healthy controls of the same age group. Various gait indicators were statistically analyzed using three classic classification methods, with the random forest method achieving a classification accuracy of 91%. This method provides an objective, convenient, and intelligent solution for telemedicine focused on movement disorders in neurological diseases.
Humans ; Aged ; Parkinson Disease/diagnosis* ; Aging ; Algorithms ; Gait ; Lower Extremity

The portable light-weight magnetic resonance imaging system can be deployed in special occasions such as Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and ambulances, making it possible to implement bedside monitoring imaging systems, mobile stroke units and magnetic resonance platforms in remote areas. Compared with medium and high field imaging systems, ultra-low-field magnetic resonance imaging equipment utilizes light-weight permanent magnets, which are compact and easy to move. However, the image quality is highly susceptible to external electromagnetic interference without a shielded room and there are still many key technical problems in hardware design to be solved. In this paper, the system hardware design and environmental electromagnetic interference elimination algorithm were studied. Consequently, some research results were obtained and a prototype of portable shielding-free 50 mT magnetic resonance imaging system was built. The light-weight magnet and its uniformity, coil system and noise elimination algorithm and human brain imaging were verified. Finally, high-quality images of the healthy human brain were obtained. The results of this study would provide reference for the development and application of ultra-low-field magnetic resonance imaging technology.
Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods* ; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy/methods* ; Head ; Equipment Design ; Magnets

[ Abstract]Automatic and accurate segmentation of lung parenchyma is essential for assisted diagnosis of lung cancer. In recent years, researchers in the field of deep learning have proposed a number of improved lung parenchyma segmentation methods based on U-Net. However, the existing segmentation methods ignore the complementary fusion of semantic information in the feature map between different layers and fail to distinguish the importance of different spaces and channels in the feature map. To solve this problem, this paper proposes the double scale parallel attention (DSPA) network (DSPA-Net) architecture, and introduces the DSPA module and the atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) module in the "encoder-decoder" structure. Among them, the DSPA module aggregates the semantic information of feature maps of different levels while obtaining accurate space and channel information of feature map with the help of cooperative attention (CA). The ASPP module uses multiple parallel convolution kernels with different void rates to obtain feature maps containing multi-scale information under different receptive fields. The two modules address multi-scale information processing in feature maps of different levels and in feature maps of the same level, respectively. We conducted experimental verification on the Kaggle competition dataset. The experimental results prove that the network architecture has obvious advantages compared with the current mainstream segmentation network. The values of dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and intersection on union (IoU) reached 0.972 ± 0.002 and 0.945 ± 0.004, respectively. This paper achieves automatic and accurate segmentation of lung parenchyma and provides a reference for the application of attentional mechanisms and multi-scale information in the field of lung parenchyma segmentation.
Algorithms ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods* ; Lung/diagnostic imaging* ; Neural Networks, Computer ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed/methods*

Microfluidics is the science and technology to manipulate small amounts of fluids in micro/nano-scale space. Multiple modules could be integrated into microfluidic device, and due to its advantages of microminiaturization and controllability, microfluidics has drawn extensive attention since its birth. In this paper, the literature data related to microfluidics research from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2021 were obtained from Web of Science Core Collection database. CiteSpace 5.8.R3 software was used for bibliometrics analysis, so as to explore the research progress and development trends of microfluidics research at home and abroad. Based on the analysis of 50 129 articles, it could be seen that microfluidics was a hot topic of global concern, and the United States had a certain degree of authority in this field. Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University not only had a high number of publications, but also had strong influence and extensive cooperation network. Combined with ultrasonic, surface modification and sensor technology, researchers constructed paper-based microfluidic, droplet microfluidic and digital microfluidic platforms, which were applied in the field of immediate diagnosis, nucleic acid and circulating tumor cell analysis of in vitro diagnosis and organ-on-a-chip. China was one of the countries with a high level of research in the field of microfluidics, while the industrialization of high-end products needed to be improved. As people's demand for disease risk prediction and health management increased, promoting microfluidic technological innovation and achievement transformation is of great significance to safeguard people's life and health.
China ; Humans ; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques ; Microfluidics ; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the clinical features, surgical methods, and prognosis of bucket-handle meniscal tears (BHMTs), and provide guidance for clinical treatment. METHODS: The clinical data of 91 BHMTs patients (91 knees), who met the selection criteria and were admitted between January 2015 and January 2021, was retrospectively analyzed. There were 68 males and 23 females. Age ranged from 16 to 58 years with an average of 34.4 years. The injury was caused by sports in 68 cases, traffic accident in 15 cases, and falls or sprains in 8 cases. There were 49 cases of left knee injury and 42 cases of right knee injury. The time from the onset of symptoms to the admission ranged from 1 day to 13 months (median, 18 days), including >1 month in 35 cases and ≤1 month in 56 cases. Medial BHMTs occurred in 52 cases and lateral BHMTs in 39 cases. There were 36 cases with ACL rupture and 12 cases with discoid meniscus. The knee extension was limited more than 10° in 55 cases. According to the condition of meniscus injury, the meniscus suture with Inside-out combined with All-inside techniques (54 cases) or meniscoplasty (37 cases) under arthroscopy were selected. ACL reconstruction was performed in all patients with ACL rupture with autogenous hamstring tendon. Postoperative complications were observed. International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score, Lysholm score, and Tegner score were used to evaluate knee function, and clinical failure was recorded. RESULTS: Two patients developed intermuscular venous thrombosis, which improved after oral anticoagulant therapy. No vascular injury, postoperative infection, joint stiffness, or other complications occurred in all patients. All patients were followed up 24-95 months, with a median of 64 months. A total of 12 cases (13.19%) failed the operation and were re-operated or given oral anti-inflammatory analgesics and rehabilitation therapy. At last follow-up, IKDC score and Lysholm score of 91 patients significantly increased when compared with those before operation ( P<0.05), while Tegner score significantly decreased ( P<0.05). The above indexes of patients treated with meniscus suture and meniscoplasty were also significantly different from those before operation ( P<0.05). CONCLUSION BHMTs occurs mostly in young men and is one of the important reasons for the limitation of knee extension after trauma. Arthroscopic meniscus suture and meniscoplasty can obtain good effectiveness according to individual conditions of patients. But the latter can better preserve the shape and function of meniscus, and theoretically can obtain better long-term outcomes, which needs to be confirmed by further research with larger sample size.
Male ; Female ; Humans ; Adolescent ; Young Adult ; Adult ; Middle Aged ; Treatment Outcome ; Retrospective Studies ; Meniscus ; Knee Joint/surgery* ; Menisci, Tibial/surgery* ; Knee Injuries/diagnosis* ; Rupture ; Tibial Meniscus Injuries/surgery* ; Arthroscopy/methods* ; Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries/surgery*

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effectiveness of joystick technique assisted closed reduction and cannulated screw fixation in the treatment of femoral neck fracture. METHODS: Seventy-four patients with fresh femoral neck fractures who met the selection criteria between April 2017 and December 2018 were selected and divided into observation group (36 cases with closed reduction assisted by joystick technique) and control group (38 cases with closed manual reduction). There was no significant difference in gender, age, fracture side, cause of injury, Garden classification, Pauwels classification, time from injury to operation, and complications (except for hypertension) between the two groups ( P>0.05). The operation time, intraoperative infusion volume, complications, and femoral neck shortening were recorded and compared between the two groups. Garden reduction index was used to evaluate the effect of fracture reduction, and score of fracture reduction (SFR) was designed and was used to evaluate the subtle reduction effect of joystick technique. RESULTS: The operation was successfully completed in both groups. There was no significant difference in operation time and intraoperative infusion volume between the two groups ( P>0.05). All patients were followed up 17-38 months, with an average of 27.7 months. Two patients in the observation group received joint replacement due to failure of internal fixation during the follow-up, and the other patients had fracture healing. Within 1 week after operation, the Garden reduxtion index of the observation group was better than the control group; the SFR score of the observation group was also higher than that of the control group; the proportion of femoral neck shortening within 1 week after operation and at 1 year after operation in the observation group were lower than those in the control group. The differences of the above indexes between the two groups were significant ( P<0.05). CONCLUSION The joystick technique can improve the effectiveness of closed reduction of femoral neck fractures and reduce the incidence of femoral neck shortening. The designed SFR score can directly and objectively evaluate the reduction effect of femoral neck fracture.
Humans ; Treatment Outcome ; Bone Screws ; Femoral Neck Fractures/surgery* ; Plastic Surgery Procedures ; Fracture Fixation, Internal/methods* ; Retrospective Studies