ObjectiveIn nature, objects cast shadows due to illumination, forming the basis for stereoscopic perception. Birds need to adapt to changes in lighting (meaning they can recognize stereoscopic shapes even when shadows look different) to accurately perceive different three-dimensional forms. However, how neurons in the key visual brain area in birds handle these lighting changes remains largely unreported. In this study, pigeons (Columba livia) were used as subjects to investigate how neurons in pigeon’s ventrolateral mesopallium (MVL) represent stereoscopic shapes consistently, regardless of changes in lighting. MethodsVisual cognitive training combined with neuronal recording was employed. Pigeons were first trained to discriminate different stereoscopic shapes (concave/convex). We then tested whether and how light luminance angle and surface appearance of the stereoscopic shapes affect their recognition accuracy, and further verify whether the results rely on specify luminance color. Simultaneously, neuronal firing activity of neurons was recorded with multiple electrode array implanted from the MVL during the presentation of difference shapes. The response was finally analyzed how selectively they responded to different stereoscopic shapes and whether their selectivity was affected by the changes of luminance condition (like lighting angle) or surface look. Support vector machine (SVM) models were trained on neuronal population responses recorded under one condition (light luminance angle of 45°) and used to decode responses under other conditions (light luminance angle of 135°, 225°, 315°) to verify the invariance of responses to different luminance conditions. ResultsBehavioral results from 6 pigeons consistently showed that the pigeons could reliably identify the core 3D shape (over 80% accuracy), and this ability wasn’t affected by changes in light angle or surface appearance. Statistical analysis of 88 recorded neurons from 6 pigeons revealed that 83% (73/88) showed strong selectivity for specific 3D shapes (selectivity index>0.3), and responses to convex shapes were consistently stronger than to concave shapes. These shape-selective responses remained stable across changes in light angle and surface appearance. Neural patterns were consistent under both blue and orange lighting. The decoding accuracy achieves above 70%, suggesting stable responses under different conditions (e.g., different lighting angles or surface appearance). ConclusionNeurons in the pigeon MVL maintain a consistent neural encoding pattern for different stereoscopic shapes, unaffected by illumination or surface appearance. This ensures stable object recognition by pigeons in changing visual environments. Our findings provide new physiological evidence for understanding how birds achieve stable perception (“invariant neural representations”) while coping with variations in the visual field.

Six compounds were isolated from the roots of Ephedra sinica Stapf using various chromatographic techniques such as silica gel column chromatography, thin layer chromatography and semi-preparative HPLC. Their chemical structures were identified by analysis of physicochemical properties and spectral data, and determined as (Z)-docosanylferulate (1), (E)-docosanylferulate (2), bis (2-ethylheptyl) phythalate (3), 2,2′-oxybis (1,4-di-tert-butylbenzene) (4), diisobutyl phthalate (5), bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (6). Among them, compound 1 is a new compound, compounds 2-4 were first isolated from Ephedra. A corticosterone-induced PC-12 cell injury model was used for compound activity screening. The results showed that compounds 1 and 5 significantly improved corticosterone-induced PC-12 cell injury and significantly increased 5-HT₇ receptor protein expression in the cells, indicating potential antidepressant activity.

Objective:To assess the effectiveness of a 6-month Ba Duan Jin exercise program in improving the balance of community-dwelling older adults.Methods:A two arms, parallel-group, cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted in 1 028 community residents aged 60-80 years in 40 communities in 5 provinces of China. Participants in the intervention group (20 communities, 523 people) received Ba Duan Jin exercise 5 days/week, 1 hour/day for 6 months, and three times of falls prevention health education, and the control group (20 communities, 505 people) received falls prevention health education same as the intervention group. The Berg balance scale (BBS) score was the leading outcome indicator, and the secondary outcome indicators included the length of time of standing on one foot (with eyes open and closed), standing in a tandem stance (with eyes open and closed), the closed circle test, and the timed up to test.Results:A total of 1 028 participants were included in the final analysis, including 731 women (71.11%) and 297 men (28.89%), and the age was (69.87±5.67) years. After the 3-month intervention, compared with the baseline data, the BBS score of the intervention group was significantly higher than the control group by 3.05 (95% CI: 2.23-3.88) points ( P<0.001). After the 6-month intervention, compared with the baseline data, the BBS score of the intervention group was significantly higher than the control group by 4.70 (95% CI: 4.03-5.37) points ( P<0.001). Ba Duan Jin showed significant improvement ( P<0.05) in all secondary outcomes after 6 months of exercise in the intervention group compared with the control group. Conclusions:This study showed that Ba Duan Jin exercise can improve balance in community-dwelling older adults aged 60-80. The longer the exercise time, the better the improvement.

Objective:To assess the efficacy of different fusion strategies involving the convolutional block attention module (CBAM) and Unet for automatic pancreas segmentation in enhanced CT images of patients with acute pancreatitis.Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted on 1 158 patients with acute pancreatitis admitted to the Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College between January 1st, 2016 and July 30th, 2021. Among them, 141 patients with first-episode acute pancreatitis were randomly categorized into mild, moderate, and severe cases. The test set comprised 5 mild and 15 severe cases, while the remaining 126 cases were used for training. Within the training set, 20% of the data was randomly allocated as the validation set. Different fusion paths of the CBAM and Unet networks were trained, utilizing the Dice similarity coefficient, Hausdorff distance (HD), and pixel accuracy (PA) as evaluation metrics. The model demonstrating the best performance on the validation set was selected and evaluated on the test set. Additionally, the Unet model was combined with the attention gate attention mechanism (AttentionUnet) in the skip connection, and the ResBlock replaced the original convolution module (ResUnet) in the Unet network. Moreover, the skip connection branch module of feature extraction was integrated with CBAM (ResUnet_CBAM) for comparison.Results:Unet_CBAM achieved better results on the test set with a Dice value of 80.06%, a HD value of 3.765 9 and a PA value of 0.992 3, all surpassing other fusion strategies. The segmentation accuracy of the pancreatic region in CT images of acute pancreatitis patients was notably enhanced compared to Unet and its related variant networks.Conclusions:The Unet network integrated into CBAM after skip connection can better perform pancreatic segmentation on enhanced CT images of patients with acute pancreatitis and can effectively improve the efficiency of relevant personnel in pancreatic segmentation on enhanced CT images of patients with acute pancreatitis.

Objective To analyze the relational factors influencing the formation of cauda equina redundant nerve roots(RNRs)of the lumbar spinal stenosis.Methods Clinical data of 116 patients with lumbar spinal stenosis treated from January 2016 to June 2019 were retrospectively analyzed.The patients were divided into redundant nerve roots(RNRs)group and non-RNRs group based on the presence or absence of RNRs on sagittal T2-weighted MRI.In the non-RNRs group,there were 74 patients,including 38 males and 36 females with an average age of(62.00±10.41)years old,the body mass index(BMI)was(23.09±2.22)kg.m-2;the maximum stenosis segment was L2-L3 in 12 cases,L3-L4 in 38,L4-L5 in 20,and L5S1 in 4,respec-tively.In the RNRs group,there were 42 patients,including 18 males and 24 females with an average age of(63.36±8.73)years old,the BMI was(22.63±2.60)kg·m-2;the maximum stenosis segment was L2-L3 in 3 cases,L3-L4 in 9,L4-L5 in 27 and L5S1 in 3,respectively.MRI was performed in the supine position to observe the conshape and morphology of the redundant nerve in the sagittal position.The preoperative low back and leg pain visual analogue scale(VAS),and preoperative Oswestry disability index(ODI)were analyzed,and the rate of spondylolisthesis and ligamentum flavum hypertrophy were compared.Si-multaneously,the inter-vertebral height,intervertebral foramen height,inter-vertebral height+vertebral height,median sagittal diameter at the inter-vertebral space level(DIW-MSD),median sagittal diameter at the pedicel level(DV-MSD),range of mo-tion(ROM)of the stenotic segment were measured and analyzed.Results Among the 116 patients with lumbar spinal stenosis,42 patients developed RNRs,with an incidence of 36.2％.There were no significant differences in gender,age,BMI,preopera-tive VAS for lumbar and leg pain and ODI between two groups(P＞0.05).There were statistically significant differences regard to the duration of symptoms and the rate of spondylolisthesis and ligamentum flavum hypertrophy(P＜0.05);the inter-vertebral height,intervertebral foramen height,inter-vertebral height+vertebral height,DIW-MSD,ROM of the stenotic segment were al-so significantly different between two groups(P＜0.05).However,there was no significant difference in DV-MSD between two groups(P＞0.05).Conclusion The inter-vertebral height,inter-vertebral foramen height,inter-vertebral height+vertebral height,DIW-MSD and ROM of the stenotic segment were the crucial factors related to RNRs in lumbar spinal stenosis.

Objective To investigate the independent risk factors of postoperative femoral head necrosis for pediatric femoral neck fractures.Methods The clinical data of 122 children with femoral neck fracture who underwent surgery in our hospital from July 2008 to July 2021 were retrospectively analyzed.The femoral head necrosis was counted,and the children were divided into the femoral head necrosis group and the femoral head normal group according to the presence of femoral head necrosis,then the risk factors of femoral head necrosis were analyzed.Results Of the 122 children,22 cases(18.03％)had femoral head necrosis.The postoperative femoral head necrosis for pediatric femoral neck fractures may be related to the age,Delbet classification,initial displacement degree,injury mechanism,operation time,internal fixation method and reduction quality(P＜0.05),while which has no significant correlation with the gender,side,time from injury to operation,or reduction method(P＞0.05).The results of Logistic regression analysis showed that age＞10 years,Delbet type of Ⅰ to Ⅱ,initial displacement degree of type Ⅲ,high-energy injury and unacceptable reduction were the independent risk factors of postoperative femoral head necrosis for pediatric femoral neck fractures(P＜0.05).Conclusion Older children,or patients with Delbet type of Ⅰ to Ⅱ,large degree of initial displacement,high-energy injury,and unacceptable reduction are the independent risk factors of postoperative femoral head necrosis for pediatric femoral neck fractures.

In the treatment of persistent atrial fibrillation with radiofrequency ablation,it is often necessary to add the ablation of external trigger foci of pulmonary vein on the basis of annular pulmonary vein isolation,including linear ablation,BOX ablation and fragmentation potential ablation.The isthmus of mitral valve is the most important component of linear ablation,but it is difficult to reach the isthmus of mitral valve for complete blockade by conventional radiofrequency ablation.The guide catheter was transported through the inferior vena cava to the coronary sinus,and the injection of Marshall vein anhydrous ethanol for ablation could achieve epicardial and myocardial block in the mitral isthmus,and the ablation combined with the endocardial patch ablation in the mitral isthmus could significantly improve the ablation effect,but there were disadvantages such as Marshall vein and coronary vein injury,high surgical cost and long time.This paper reports a case of persistent atrial fibrillation treated by self-made perforated balloon with Marshall intravenous anhydrous ethanol combined with individualized ablation strategy.No major adverse cardiovascular events or recurrence of atrial fibrillation occurred during 6 months of follow-up after discharge.

AIM To study the chemical constituents from n-butanol fraction of Corydalis impatiens(Pall.)Fisch.and their antioxidant activities.METHODS The n-butanol fraction was isolated and purified by silica gel,MCI,ODS,Sephadex LH-20 and semi-preparative HPLC,then the structures of obtained compounds were identified by physicochemical properties and spectral data.The antioxidant activities were determined by DPPH method and tyrosinase method.RESULTS Fourteen compounds were isolated and identified as nicotinamide(1),methyl L-pyroglutamate(2),bungeanoline F(3),monomethyl fumarate(4),5-hydroxymethylfurfural(5),4-hydroxybenzoic acid(6),hydroxybenzoate(7),methyl 3,4-dihydroxybenzoate(8),methyl ferulate(9),dimethylcaffeic acid(10),dimethyl feruloyl malate(11),(-)-4-O-feruloylquinic acid(12),syringaresinol(13)and(-)-loliolide(14).Compounds 1,8,11 and 13 showed strong antioxidant activites on DPPH free radicals,with IC50 values ranging from 54.47 to 97.4 μmol/L.Compound 13 had potential inhibitory effect on tyrosinase.CONCLUSION Compounds 4-14 are first isolated from Corydalis genus,and 3 is isolated from this plant for the first time.Compounds 1,8,11 and 13 have strong antioxidant activities.

Objective: To investigate how plasma exchange (PE) and double plasma molecular adsorption combined with half-volume plasma exchange (DPMAS + half-volume PE) affect the curative effect and short-term survival rate in liver failure. Methods: Data from 181 cases of liver failure caused by different etiologies from January 1, 2017 to September 31, 2020, were selected. Patients were divided into a PE treatment alone group and a DPMAS + half-dose PE treatment group. The laboratory indicators with different models of artificial liver before and after treatment and the survival rates of 7, 14, 28, and 90 days after discharge were observed in the two groups. Measurement data were analyzed by t-tests and rank sum tests. Categorical data were analyzed by χ (2) test. Results: Non-biological artificial liver therapy with different models improved the liver and coagulation function in the two groups of patients with liver failure (P < 0.05 in PTA% intra-group). The coagulation function was significantly improved in the PE treatment alone group compared with that in the DPMAS + half-dose PE group [PT after treatment: (20.15 ± 0.88) s in the PE treatment alone group, (23.43 ± 1.02) s, t = -2.44, P = 0.016 in the DPMAS+half-dose PE group; PTA: 44.72% ± 1.75% in the PE treatment alone group, 35.62% ± 2.25%, t = 3.215 P = 0.002 in the DPMAS + half-dose PE group]. Bilirubin levels were significantly decreased in the DPMAS+half-dose PE group compared to the PE treatment alone group [total bilirubin after treatment: (255.30 ± 15.64) μmol/L in the PE treatment alone group, (205.46 ± 9.03) μmol/L, t = 2.74, P = 0.07 in the DPMAS + half-dose PE group; direct bilirubin after treatment: (114.74 ± 7.11) μmol/L in the PE treatment alone group, (55.33 ± 3.18) μmol/L, t = 7.54, P < 0.001) in the DPMAS + half-dose PE group]. However, there was no significant effect on leukocytes and neutrophils after treatment with different models of artificial liver (P > 0.05) in the two groups, and platelets decreased after treatment, with no statistically significant difference between the groups (t = -0.15, P = 0.882). The inflammatory indexes of the two groups improved after treatment with different models of artificial liver (P < 0.05], and the 28 and 90 d survival rates were higher in the DPMAS+half-dose PE group than those of the PE treatment alone group (28 d: 60.3% vs. 75.0%, χ (2) = 4.315, P = 0.038; 90 d: 56.2% vs. 72.5%. χ (2) = 10.355 P < 0.001). DPMAS + half-dose PE group plasma saving was 1385 ml compared with PE treatment alone group (Z = -7.608, P < 0.05). Conclusion: Both DPMAS+half-dose PE and PE treatment alone have a certain curative effect on patients with liver failure. In DPMAS+half-dose PE, the 28-day survival rate is superior to PE treatment alone, and it saves plasma consumption and minimizes blood use in clinic.

Objective:To investigate the relationship between telomere length of bone marrow mononuclear cells and prognosis of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who received allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT).Methods:Telomere length of bone marrow mononuclear cells before transplantation, after transplantation and before donor mobilization as well as information related to follow-up of 33 AML patients who received allo-HSCT in the Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University between June 2020 and June 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. Telomere length was detected by using telomeric terminal restriction fragment (TRF) method. Telomere length was compared among patients with different prognoses. The recurrence within 1 year was treated as the gold standard and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to analyze the effect of telomere length before transplantation or before donor mobilization in the judgement of the recurrence within 1 year after transplantation. The patients were stratified according to the optimal threshold value of telomere length for patients or donors, and Kaplan-Meier method was used to compare the progression-free survival (PFS) of patients with different stratification, and log-rank test was performed.Results:The median age of 33 patients was 34 years (14-61 years), and there were 17 males and 16 females; 31 patients were initially diagnosed with AML, 1 patient transferred from myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) to AML, and 1 patient transferred from chronic granulocytic leukemia (CML) to AML; 14 received identical sibling transplantation and 19 received haploidentical sibling transplantation. The median age of the donors was 30 years (20-65 years), including 24 males and 9 females. Telomere length of bone marrow mononuclear cells before mobilization in 33 donors was longer than that in patients before transplantation (33 cases) and at +30 d after transplantation (31 cases) [(6.67±0.31) kb, (6.40±0.33) kb, (6.48±0.33) kb, respectively; all P < 0.05], and the difference between patients before and at +30 d after transplantation was not statistically significant ( t = 0.89, P = 0.378), and the telomere length of bone marrow mononuclear cells in 11 patients +180 d after transplantation was (6.66±0.18) kb. The incidence of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) after transplantation was 45.5% (15/33), the incidence of infection with clear imaging and pathogenic basis was 39.4% (13/33), the mortality rate within 1 year after transplantation was 3.0% (1/33), and the recurrence rate within 1 year after transplantation was 15.2% (5/33). There were no statistically significant differences in telomere length of donor pre-mobilization bone marrow mononuclear cells between the groups with and without aGVHD and between the infected and non-infected groups (all P > 0.05).Compared with patients who had not relapsed within 1 year after transplantation, telomere length of donor pre-mobilization bone marrow mononuclear cells was shorter in patients who relapsed within 1 year after transplantation [(6.39±0.19) kb vs. (6.72±0.30) kb, t = -3.23, P = 0.011], telomere length was longer in patients before transplantation [(6.75±0.16) kb vs. (6.35±0.36) kb, t = 4.17, P = 0.001]. ROC curve analysis showed that the optimal threshold values for telomere length of pre-transplantation and donor pre-mobilization bone marrow mononuclear cells were 6.48 and 6.42 kb, respectively for patients who relapsed within 1 year after transplantation. PFS in patients with pre-transplantation bone marrow mononuclear cells telomere length < 6.48 kb was better than that in patients with telomere length ≥ 6.48 kb ( P = 0.003); PFS in patients with pre-mobilization bone marrow mononuclear cells telomere length>6.42 kb was better than that in patients with telomere length ≤ 6.42 kb ( P < 0.001). Conclusions:In allo-HSCT for AML, patients have an increased risk of relapse within 1 year after transplantation when their pre-transplantation bone marrow mononuclear cells telomere length is long and the donor bone marrow mononuclear cells telomere length is short.