Objective To evaluate the effect of low-dose ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) injection on image quality in pediatric patients, calculate the whole-body effective dose and absorbed doses to critical organs, and provide a reference for clinical protection in pediatric low-dose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) examination. Methods A total of 67 pediatric patients aged 4-14 years who underwent ¹⁸F-FDG whole-body PET/CT imaging in the Department of Nuclear Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University between January 2024 and December 2025 were enrolled in a retrospective study. According to the injected ¹⁸F-FDG dose, patients were divided into a full-dose group (37 cases, 2.96-3.7 MBq/kg, PET acquisition duration of 10 min) and a low-dose group (30 cases, 1.85-2.4 MBq/kg, PET acquisition duration of 15 min). All scans were performed using a uEXPLORER PET/CT scanner. The standardized uptake value, standard deviation, and signal-to-noise ratio were measured for the liver and mediastinal blood pool. Image quality was compared between the two groups. The PET effective dose was calculated based on body mass index, and the total effective dose was obtained by combining PET effective dose with CT effective dose. The doses to critical organs were calculated according to ICRP Publication 128. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 26.0 and Prism 9.0 software. Differences were compared between groups. Results There were no significant differences in age, sex, weight, height, or body mass index between the two groups (P>0.05), while the injected dose showed a significant difference (P<0.001). In terms of image quality, there were no significant differences in standardized uptake value, standard deviation, and signal-to-noise ratio between the two groups. In terms of radiation dose, compared with the full-dose group, the low-dose group showed a 35.13% reduction in PET effective dose and a 15.22% reduction in total effective dose (P<0.05), whereas the CT effective dose was reduced by 2.4% and the difference was not significant (P=0.0892). The doses to critical organs (gonads, breasts, thyroid, red bone marrow, lungs) in the low-dose group were significantly lower than those in the full-dose group (P<0.01). Conclusion Under the premise of meeting clinical diagnostic requirements, low-dose ¹⁸F-FDG whole-body PET/CT imaging in pediatric patients can reduce the overall radiation exposure by 15%, and decrease the doses to critical organs, including the gonads, by more than 20%.

Objective To evaluate the effect of low-dose ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) injection on image quality in pediatric patients, calculate the whole-body effective dose and absorbed doses to critical organs, and provide a reference for clinical protection in pediatric low-dose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) examination. Methods A total of 67 pediatric patients aged 4-14 years who underwent ¹⁸F-FDG whole-body PET/CT imaging in the Department of Nuclear Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University between January 2024 and December 2025 were enrolled in a retrospective study. According to the injected ¹⁸F-FDG dose, patients were divided into a full-dose group (37 cases, 2.96-3.7 MBq/kg, PET acquisition duration of 10 min) and a low-dose group (30 cases, 1.85-2.4 MBq/kg, PET acquisition duration of 15 min). All scans were performed using a uEXPLORER PET/CT scanner. The standardized uptake value, standard deviation, and signal-to-noise ratio were measured for the liver and mediastinal blood pool. Image quality was compared between the two groups. The PET effective dose was calculated based on body mass index, and the total effective dose was obtained by combining PET effective dose with CT effective dose. The doses to critical organs were calculated according to ICRP Publication 128. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 26.0 and Prism 9.0 software. Differences were compared between groups. Results There were no significant differences in age, sex, weight, height, or body mass index between the two groups (P>0.05), while the injected dose showed a significant difference (P<0.001). In terms of image quality, there were no significant differences in standardized uptake value, standard deviation, and signal-to-noise ratio between the two groups. In terms of radiation dose, compared with the full-dose group, the low-dose group showed a 35.13% reduction in PET effective dose and a 15.22% reduction in total effective dose (P<0.05), whereas the CT effective dose was reduced by 2.4% and the difference was not significant (P=0.0892). The doses to critical organs (gonads, breasts, thyroid, red bone marrow, lungs) in the low-dose group were significantly lower than those in the full-dose group (P<0.01). Conclusion Under the premise of meeting clinical diagnostic requirements, low-dose ¹⁸F-FDG whole-body PET/CT imaging in pediatric patients can reduce the overall radiation exposure by 15%, and decrease the doses to critical organs, including the gonads, by more than 20%.

Objective To evaluate the effect of low-dose ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) injection on image quality in pediatric patients, calculate the whole-body effective dose and absorbed doses to critical organs, and provide a reference for clinical protection in pediatric low-dose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) examination. Methods A total of 67 pediatric patients aged 4-14 years who underwent ¹⁸F-FDG whole-body PET/CT imaging in the Department of Nuclear Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University between January 2024 and December 2025 were enrolled in a retrospective study. According to the injected ¹⁸F-FDG dose, patients were divided into a full-dose group (37 cases, 2.96-3.7 MBq/kg, PET acquisition duration of 10 min) and a low-dose group (30 cases, 1.85-2.4 MBq/kg, PET acquisition duration of 15 min). All scans were performed using a uEXPLORER PET/CT scanner. The standardized uptake value, standard deviation, and signal-to-noise ratio were measured for the liver and mediastinal blood pool. Image quality was compared between the two groups. The PET effective dose was calculated based on body mass index, and the total effective dose was obtained by combining PET effective dose with CT effective dose. The doses to critical organs were calculated according to ICRP Publication 128. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 26.0 and Prism 9.0 software. Differences were compared between groups. Results There were no significant differences in age, sex, weight, height, or body mass index between the two groups (P>0.05), while the injected dose showed a significant difference (P<0.001). In terms of image quality, there were no significant differences in standardized uptake value, standard deviation, and signal-to-noise ratio between the two groups. In terms of radiation dose, compared with the full-dose group, the low-dose group showed a 35.13% reduction in PET effective dose and a 15.22% reduction in total effective dose (P<0.05), whereas the CT effective dose was reduced by 2.4% and the difference was not significant (P=0.0892). The doses to critical organs (gonads, breasts, thyroid, red bone marrow, lungs) in the low-dose group were significantly lower than those in the full-dose group (P<0.01). Conclusion Under the premise of meeting clinical diagnostic requirements, low-dose ¹⁸F-FDG whole-body PET/CT imaging in pediatric patients can reduce the overall radiation exposure by 15%, and decrease the doses to critical organs, including the gonads, by more than 20%.

A strategy combining a tailored database and high-throughput activity screening that discover bioactive metabolites derived from Magnoliae Officinalis Cortex (MOC) was developed and implemented to rapidly profile and discover bioactive metabolites in vivo derived from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The strategy possessed four characteristics: 1) The tailored database consisted of metabolites derived from big data-originated reference compound, metabolites predicted in silico, and MOC chemical profile-based pseudomolecular ions. 2) When profiling MOC-derived metabolites in vivo, attentions were paid not only to prototypes of MOC compounds and metabolites directly derived from MOC compounds, as reported by most papers, but also to isomerized metabolites and the degradation products of MOC compounds as well as their derived metabolites. 3) Metabolite traceability was performed, especially to distinguish isomeric prototypes-derived metabolites, prototypes of MOC compounds as well as phase I metabolites derived from other MOC compounds. 4) Molecular docking was utilized for high-throughput activity screening and molecular dynamic simulation as well as zebrafish model were used for verification. Using this strategy, 134 metabolites were swiftly characterized after the oral administration of MOC to rats, and several metabolites were reported for the first time. Furthermore, 17 potential active metabolites were discovered by targeting the motilin, dopamine D2, and the serotonin type 4 (5-HT₄) receptors, and part bioactivities were verified using molecular dynamic simulation and a zebrafish constipation model. This study extends the application of mass spectrometry (MS) to rapidly profile TCM-derived metabolites in vivo, which will help pharmacologists rapidly discover potent metabolites from a complex matrix.

Drug repurposing offers a promising alternative to traditional drug development and significantly reduces costs and timelines by identifying new therapeutic uses for existing drugs. However, the current approaches often rely on limited data sources and simplistic hypotheses, which restrict their ability to capture the multi-faceted nature of biological systems. This study introduces adaptive multi-view learning (AMVL), a novel methodology that integrates chemical-induced transcriptional profiles (CTPs), knowledge graph (KG) embeddings, and large language model (LLM) representations, to enhance drug repurposing predictions. AMVL incorporates an innovative similarity matrix expansion strategy and leverages multi-view learning (MVL), matrix factorization, and ensemble optimization techniques to integrate heterogeneous multi-source data. Comprehensive evaluations on benchmark datasets (Fdataset, Cdataset, and Ydataset) and the large-scale iDrug dataset demonstrate that AMVL outperforms state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods, achieving superior accuracy in predicting drug-disease associations across multiple metrics. Literature-based validation further confirmed the model's predictive capabilities, with seven out of the top ten predictions corroborated by post-2011 evidence. To promote transparency and reproducibility, all data and codes used in this study were open-sourced, providing resources for processing CTPs, KG, and LLM-based similarity calculations, along with the complete AMVL algorithm and benchmarking procedures. By unifying diverse data modalities, AMVL offers a robust and scalable solution for accelerating drug discovery, fostering advancements in translational medicine and integrating multi-omics data. We aim to inspire further innovations in multi-source data integration and support the development of more precise and efficient strategies for advancing drug discovery and translational medicine.

Objective:To evaluate the effect of dexmedetomidine on Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)/myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88)/nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway in the hippocampus of mice with cognitive impairment after traumatic brain injury (TBI).Methods:Sixty specific pathogen-free healthy adult wild-type C57BL/6 mice, aged 21-23 months, weighing 28-34 g, were divided into 5 groups ( n=12 each) by a random number table method: sham operation + vehicle group (SV group), sham operation + dexmedetomidine group (SD group), TBI + vehicle group (TV group), TBI + dexmedetomidine group (TD group) and TBI + TLR4 inhibitor TAK-242 group (TT group). The modified Feeney free fall epidural impact method was used to establish a mild TBI model. At 30 min before model preparation, dexmedetomidine 25 μg/kg was intraperitoneally injected in SD group and TD group, TAK-242 10 mg/kg was intraperitoneally injected in TT group, and the equal volume of normal saline was intraperitoneally injected in SV group and TV group. Neurological severity scores (NSSs) were used to evaluate the neurological function at 1, 7 and 14 days after developing the model. The novel object recognition test (recognition index) and fear conditioning test (the percentage of freezing time related to context and sound) were used to evaluate the cognitive function of mice at 16 days after developing the model. The number and morphology of hippocampal neurons (NeuN-positive cells) and activated microglia (ionized calcium-binding adaptor molecule 1[IBA1]-positive cells) were measured by immunofluorescent staining. The expression of interleukin-1beta (IL-1β), IL-6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), TLR4, MyD88 and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) was detected by Western blot. Results:Compared with SV group, the NSS was significantly increased, the recognition index was decreased, the percentage of freezing time related to context and sound was decreased, the number of NeuN-positive cells was decreased, the number of IBA1-positive cells was increased and the cell body area was enlarged, the total branch length and intersection points were decreased, and the expression of TLR4, MyD88, NF-κB, IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α was up-regulated in TV group ( P<0.05). Compared with TV group, the NSS was significantly decreased, the recognition index was increased, the percentage of freezing time related to context and sound was increased, the number of NeuN-positive cells was increased, the number of IBA1-positive cells was decreased and the cell body area was reduced, the total branch length and intersection points were increased, and the expression of TLR4, MyD88, NF-κB, IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α was down-regulated in TD group and TT group ( P<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the aforementioned parameters between TD group and TT group ( P>0.05). Conclusions:The mechanism by which dexmedetomidine mitigates TBI-induced cognitive impairment may be related to inhibition of the hippocampal TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB signaling pathway and reduction of neuroinflammatory responses in mice.

Objective:To evaluate the effect of acupuncture on postoperative delirium (POD) in diabetic patients undergoing surgery under general anesthesia.Methods:In this randomized controlled trial, 92 diabetic patients of either sex, aged 30-80 yr, with a body mass index of 18-28 kg/m 2, of American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status classification Ⅱ or Ⅲ, scheduled for elective surgery under general anesthesia, were divided into 2 groups ( n=46 each) using a table of random numbers: control group (group C) and acupuncture group (group A). Group A received acupuncture at the Baihui (GV20), Shenting (GV24) and Sishencong (EX-HN1) acupoints before anesthesia. The needles were retained for 30 min, with manual stimulation applied every 10 min for 10 s each time. After 4 stimulations, routine anesthesia was carried out. Group C received routine anesthesia only. Regional cerebral oxygen saturation was recorded on admission to the operating room (T 0), after anesthesia induction (T 1), at the start of surgery (T 2), at the end of surgery (T 3), and immediately after tracheal extubation (T 4). The POD developed within 3 days after surgery was assessed. The occurrence of needle-related adverse effects such as fainting, subcutaneous bleeding, and local paresthesia was recorded. Results:Compared with group C, the incidence of POD was significantly reduced, and the regional cerebral oxygen saturation was increased at T 1, 4 in group A ( P<0.05). Conclusions:Acupuncture can decrease the development of POD in diabetic patients undergoing surgery under general anesthesia, which is related to an increase in regional cerebral oxygen saturation.

Background:Bushen Zhuanggu Formula(BZF),derived from the classic Yougui Pills,has shown favorable clinical efficacy in treating advanced nontraumatic osteonecrosis of the femoral head(NONFH),particularly by promoting bone repair.However,its underlying mechanisms remain unclear.Objective:This study aimed to explore the mechanisms by which BZF promotes bone repair in advanced NONFH.Materials and methods:A total of 518 potential BZF targets were identified from the ETCM v2.0 database.Transcriptomic profiling of clinical cohorts revealed 485 differentially expressed genes in advanced NONFH patients compared to healthy controls.A drug target-disease gene interaction network was constructed to identify candidate BZF targets involved in NONFH pathogenesis.In vivo experiments were conducted to validate the effects of BZF in a rat model of advanced NONFH.Results:Network analysis identified key pathways associated with blood circulation obstruction,immune-inflammatory imbalance,and abnormal bone metabolism.Protein kinase C alpha(PKCA),Ras proto-oncogene(RAS),mitogen-activated protein kinase 3(ERK),ETS proto-oncogene 1(ETS1),and receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB ligand(RANKL)formed a signaling axis implicated in NONFH pathogenesis.BZF treatment alleviated joint inflammation,preserved trabecular bone morphology,reduced bone loss,and promoted bone repair.Mechanistically,BZF significantly downregulated the expression of PKCA,RAS,ERK,ETS1,and RANKL,improved blood circulation,and inhibited osteoclast activation while promoting osteoblast activation.Conclusion:BZF may promote bone repair in advanced NONFH by enhancing blood circulation and modulating the PKC-RAS-ERK-ETS1-RANKL signaling axis,thereby reversing dysregulated bone metabolism.

A strategy combining a tailored database and high-throughput activity screening that discover bioactive metabolites derived from Magnoliae Officinalis Cortex(MOC)was developed and implemented to rapidly profile and discover bioactive metabolites in vivo derived from traditional Chinese medicine(TCM).The strategy possessed four characteristics:1)The tailored database consisted of metabolites derived from big data-originated reference compound,metabolites predicted in silico,and MOC chemical profile-based pseudomolecular ions.2)When profiling MOC-derived metabolites in vivo,attentions were paid not only to prototypes of MOC compounds and metabolites directly derived from MOC compounds,as reported by most papers,but also to isomerized metabolites and the degradation products of MOC compounds as well as their derived metabolites.3)Metabolite traceability was performed,especially to distinguish isomeric prototypes-derived metabolites,prototypes of MOC compounds as well as phase Ⅰ metabolites derived from other MOC compounds.4)Molecular docking was utilized for high-throughput activity screening and molecular dynamic simulation as well as zebrafish model were used for verification.Using this strategy,134 metabolites were swiftly characterized after the oral administration of MOC to rats,and several metabolites were reported for the first time.Furthermore,17 potential active metabolites were discovered by targeting the motilin,dopamine D2,and the serotonin type 4(5-HT4)receptors,and part bioactivities were verified using molecular dynamic simulation and a zebrafish constipation model.This study extends the application of mass spectrometry(MS)to rapidly profile TCM-derived metabolites in vivo,which will help pharmacologists rapidly discover potent metabolites from a complex matrix.