Gap junction(GJ),also known as gap junction,is widely found between neurons and glial cells,and can connect neighboring cells and mediate the transmission of electrical sig-nals between neighboring cells.The GJ channel,which exists between neurons and mediates intercellular electrical signaling,is also known as an electrical synapse.Connexins(Cxs)are the molecular basis of GJ,and are expressed to different degrees in different neurons and glial cells.The presence of GJ mediates different functions among neurons and glial cells,which further influences the establishment of various mature neural circuits,re-flecting the importance of GJ in the maintenance of neural cir-cuits.This review summarizes the relationship between GJ and neural circuits in relation to the effects of GJ and different Cxs on neurons and glial cells,providing new research ideas for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders.

AIM To analyze the constituents absorbed into blood and brain from Zhishe Tongluo Capsules.METHODS Sixteen rats were randomly assigned into four groups and given intragastric administration(3.1 g/kg),after which the cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury(MACO)model was established,the blood and brain tissues were collected,and UHPLC-Q Exactive Focus MS/MS was adopted in the identification of prototype constituents.RESULTS Total 70 constituents were identified,20 of which were found in the blood,mainly including flavonoids,tanshinones and Ligusticum chuanxiong phthalides,and 7 of them could enter the brain through blood-brain barrier.Compared with the normal administration group,the MACO administration group demonstrated added constituents absorbed into blood containing 3-hydroxybenzoic acid,calycosin-7-glucoside,curcumenol,senkyunolide B,dihydrotanshinone I and cryptotanshinone;removed constituents absorbed into brain containing puerarin,elemicin,sedanolide,and added those containing salvianolic acid A,senkyunolide I,dihydrotanshinone I in the left brain tissues(infarcted side).CONCLUSION The constituents absorbed into blood and brain from Zhishe Tongluo Capsules,along with the enhanced absorptions of phthalides,quinones and phenols in MACO rats in vivo may be the active substances for treating cerebral infarction.

Objective To develop a medical positive pressure protective suit for long-voyage aeromedical evacuation to realize protective isolation and drinking water and energy supply for medical personnel during long-voyage aeromedical evacuation of respiratory infectious disease patients.Methods The medical positive pressure protective suit had a one-piece structure,with its main part made of hydroentangled non-woven fabric,head and forebreast parts made of amorphous polyethylene terephthalate anti-fog material and wearing-and taking-off parts sealed with zipper and autohesion,which was equipped with a portable positive pressure air supply device,an airborne centralized positive pressure air supply device and a monitoring and warning device.The portable positive pressure air supply device was fixed in the back of the suit at the waist,the airborne device was made by modifying the commercially available positive pressure air supply fan,and the monitoring and warning device monitored the air supply volume of the fan,the battery power and the pressure inside the suit.Results The suit behaved well in protection,clean fresh air supply without time limitation and facilitating hydration and energy replenishment of medical personnel by forming three activity spaces.Conclusion The suit developed can continuously provide a clean and comfortable microenvironment,meeting the requirements of medical personnel for protection and hydration and energy replenishment during long-voyage aeromedical evacuation.[Chinese Medical Equipment Journal,2024,45(11):113-116]

A domestically produced self-expanding transcatheter aortic valve controllable bending delivery system(VitaFlow? Ⅲcontrollable bending retrievable delivery system)was first used to perform transcatheter aortic valve replacement(TAVR)in a symptomatic severe aortic valve stenosis patient with severe heart failure and high risk of surgery in China on September 22,2023.The patient successfully completed TAVR under general anesthesia,with good valve position and function after the operation.Before discharge and at one month of follow-up,the patient's symptoms and degree of heart failure were significantly improved.The follow-up results of this case showed that the VitaFlow? Ⅲ controllable bending retrievable delivery system for TAVR is safe and feasible,and future prospective,multicenter clinical trials are expected to evaluate its efficacy.

AIM To evaluate the quality of Beidougen Formula Granules.METHODS Fifteen batches of standard decoctions and three batches of formula granules were prepared,after which paste rate and contents,transfer rates of magnoflorine,daurisoline,dauricine were determined.HPLC specific chromatograms were established,and cluster analysis was adopted in chemical pattern recognition.RESULTS For three batches of formula granules,the paste rates were 15.1%-16.6%,the contents of magnoflorine,daurisoline,dauricine were 18.93-19.39,9.42-9.60,6.79-6.85 mg/g with the transfer rates of 34.42%-35.25%,43.81%-44.65%,27.27%-27.51%from decoction pieces to formula granules,respectively,and there were seven characteristic peaks in the specific chromatograms with the similarities of more than 0.95,which demonstrated good consistence with those of standard decoctions and accorded with related limit requirements.Fifteen batches of standard decoctions were clustered into two types,and the medicinal materials produced from Jilin,Hebei,Shangdong could be used for the preparation of formula granules.CONCLUSION This reasonable and reliable method can provide references for the quality control and clinical application of Beidougen Formula Granules.

Objective To explore the safety of minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) with three-field lymphadenectomy (3-FL) for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) by comparing the short-term outcomes between the 3-FL and the two-field lymphadenectomy (2-FL) in MIE. Methods The clinical data of patients with ESCC who underwent minimally invasive McKeown esophagectomy in our hospital from July 2015 to March 2022 were collected retrospectively. Patients were divided into a 3-FL group and a 2-FL group according to lymph node dissection method. And the clinical outcomes and postoperative complications were compared between the two groups. Results A total of 257 patients with ESCC were included in this study. There were 211 males and 46 females with an average age of 62.2±8.1 years. There were 109 patients in the 3-FL group and 148 patients in the 2-FL group. The operation time of the 3-FL group was about 20 minutes longer than that of the 2-FL group (P<0.001). There was no statistical difference between the two groups in the intraoperatve blood loss (P=0.376). More lymph nodes (P<0.001) and also more positive lymph nodes (P=0.003) were obtained in the 3-FL group than in the 2-FL group, and there was a statistical difference in the pathological N stage between the two groups (P<0.001). But there was no statistical difference in the incidence of anastomotic leak (P=0.667), chyle leak (P=0.421), recurrent laryngeal nerve injury (P=0.081), pulmonary complications (P=0.601), pneumonia (P=0.061), cardiac complications (P=0.383), overall complications (P=0.147) or Clavien-Dindo grading (P=0.152) between the two groups. Conclusion MIE 3-FL can improve the efficiency of lymph node dissection and the accuracy of tumor lymph node staging, but it does not increase the postoperative complications, which is worthy of clinical application.

ObjectiveTo systematically explore the underlying mechanisms of Huashi Baidu prescription （HBP） against myocardial injury through a multidimensional network analysis of "transcriptome-putative target-phenotype gene". MethodPutative targets of compounds in HBP were predicted using the Encyclopedia of Traditional Chinese Medicine （ETCM 2.0，http：//www.tcmip.cn/ETCM2/front/） and the Integrative Pharmacology-based Research Platform of Traditional Chinese Medicine （TCMIP v2.0，http：//www.tcmip.cn/TCMIP/index.php/Home/Login/login.html）. Clinical predominant symptom phenotypes for HBP against coronavirus disease 2019 （COVID-19） were collected from CNKI and PubMed databases， while clinical side effects of doxorubicin were gathered from the CTD database. Phenotype-related genes were collected from the HPO database and SoFDA data platform （http：//www.tcmip.cn/Syndrome/front/#/）. An interaction network of "transcriptome-putative target-phenotype gene" was constructed. Key nodes were identified through topological feature calculations， and functional enrichment analysis was conducted to explain the underlying mechanism. Pharmacodynamic evaluation and mechanism verification were performed using a doxorubicin-induced myocardial injury mouse model. Sixty-five SPF-grade C57BL/6J male mice were randomly divided into a control group， a doxorubicin model group， and low-， medium-， and high-dose HBP groups （HBP-L/M/H）， with 13 mice per group. Histopathological severity was assessed using hematoxylin-eosin （HE） and Masson staining. Fibrosis markers were measured by Real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction （Real-time PCR）， and protein expression was detected by Western blot. ResultA total of 1 044 putative targets for HBP were obtained from ETCM 2.0 and TCMIP v2.0. From the CTD， HPO， and SoFDA databases， 1 223 potential effect-related targets were identified. Cardiac transcriptome sequencing （RNA-seq） yielded 214 genes related to doxorubicin-induced myocardial injury and 58 genes associated with the effects of HBP， using criteria of P-value<0.05 and FC > 1.5/< 0.667. Analysis of the multidimensional molecular network revealed that the mechanisms of HBP on myocardial injury were mainly related to immune-inflammation imbalance， cellular metabolism， myocardial cell function and fibrosis， angiogenesis， contraction and platelet activation， DNA synthesis， metabolism and repair， as well as cell death and oxidative stress. HBP improved cardiovascular abnormalities such as reduced ejection fraction， myocardial fibrosis， myocarditis， hypertriglyceridemia， and arterial/venous thrombosis. Animal experiments demonstrated that HBP reduced the abnormal high expression of Nod-like receptor heat protein domain Protein 3 （NLRP3）， Caspase-1， apoptosis-associated speck-like protein （ASC）， and Gasdermin D （GSDMD） in myocardial tissue induced by doxorubicin （P<0.05）， and improved the elevated mRNA levels of fibrosis markers transforming growth factor-β₁ （TGF-β₁）， Smad3， and α-smooth muscle actin （α-SMA） （P<0.05）. ConclusionHBP can improve myocardial injury through multiple components， targets， and effects， with the inhibition of the NLRP3 inflammasome activation pathway being a key pharmacodynamic mechanism. This study is expected to provide new insights for the development of targeted therapeutic drugs.

The incidence of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) continues to rise, and there are no effective drugs to treat it. The immune microenvironment plays an important role in the development of ICC and is currently a research hotspot. Icaritin (ICA) is an innovative traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. It is considered to have potential immunoregulatory and anti-tumor effects, which is potentially consistent with the understanding of "Fuzheng" in the treatment of tumor in traditional Chinese medicine. However, whether ICA can be used to treat ICC has not been reported. Therefore, in this study, sgp19/kRas, an in situ ICC mouse model with intact immune system, was selected to evaluate the efficacy of ICA in the treatment of ICC in vivo for the first time, and the effects of ICA on the tumor immune microenvironment of ICC mice were analyzed by flow cytometry. This experiment was approved by the Experimental Animal Ethics Committee of Capital Medical University (approval number: AEEI-2023-138). In this study, sgp19/kRas ICC mouse model was treated with oral gavage of 100 mg·kg^-1 ICA. We found that ICA significantly inhibited tumor growth and tumor cell proliferation in the sgp19/kRas ICC mouse model after 3 weeks of treatment. Flow cytometry analysis indicated that ICA treatment markedly reduced the proportion of M2 macrophages and increased the number of CD3⁺CD4⁺ T cells. In vitro experiments demonstrated that ICA promoted macrophage polarization towards the M1 phenotype while inhibiting polarization towards the M2 phenotype. Furthermore, transcriptomic analysis suggested that ICA enhanced Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) expression, influencing macrophage nitric oxide metabolism synthesis pathways and receptor-related activities, thereby regulating macrophage polarization. In summary, this study demonstrates that ICA treatment significantly delays tumor progression in sgp19/kRas ICC mouse models. Mechanistically, ICA may achieve its anti-ICC effects by upregulating TLR9 receptor expression levels, promoting macrophage polarization towards the M1 phenotype, and altering the tumor immune microenvironment.

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) refers to AI technology capable of generating new content such as text, images, or audio from training data. GAI tools not only demonstrate rapid and efficient potential in literature screening, data extraction, and literature appraisal in systematic reviews, but can also be used for guideline evaluation and dissemination, enhancing the readability and promotion efficiency of guidelines. However, the accuracy of content generated by GAI tools, the rationality of cited evidence, the level of evidence, and the reliability of data still need verification. Additionally, data privacy protection and ethical issues are challenges that need to be addressed. This article aims to overview the current status of GAI tools in the formulation, evaluation, dissemination, and implementation of guidelines, explore the feasibility and new models of GAI tools in the field of guidelines, and improve the efficiency and quality of guideline formulation to better serve guideline developers and users.

Objective Photoelectric volumetric tracing(PPG)exhibits high sensitivity and specificity in flap monitoring.Deep learning(DL)is capable of automatically and robustly extracting features from raw data.In this study,we propose combining PPG with 1D convolutional neural networks(1D-CNN)to preliminarily explore the method's ability to distinguish the degree of embolism and to localize the embolic site in skin flap arteries.Methods Data were collected under normal conditions and various embolic scenarios by creating vascular emboli in a dermatome artery model and a rabbit dermatome model.These datasets were then trained,validated,and tested using 1D-CNN.Results As the degree of arterial embolization increased,the PPG amplitude upstream of the embolization site progressively increased,while the downstream amplitude progressively decreased,and the gap between the upstream and downstream amplitudes at the embolization site progressively widened.1D-CNN was evaluated in the skin flap arterial model and rabbit skin flap model,achieving average accuracies of 98.36%and 95.90%,respectively.Conclusion The combined monitoring approach of DL and PPG can effectively identify the degree of embolism and locate the embolic site within the skin flap artery.