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.

Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of facilitated percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI)with half-dose recombinant staphylokinase(r-SAK)in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction(STEMI)who are expected to undergo PCI within 120 minutes.Methods From October 2021 to August 2022,a total of 200 STEMI patients in eight centers were included and randomly assigned in a 1﹕1 ratio to either r-SAK group or control group.Patients received loading doses of aspirin and ticagrelor and intravenous heparin and were randomized to receive an intravenous bolus of either 5 mg r-SAK or normal saline prior to PCI.The outcomes were set as ST-segment resolution(STR)at 60-90 minutes after PCI,the proportion and transition of pathological Q waves on the 5th day after PCI,and the proportion of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T(hs-cTnT)peaking within 12 hours of onset.The safety outcome was major bleeding events defined as Bleeding Academic Research Consortium(BARC)≥type 3 bleeding during hospitalization.Results Compared with the control group,the r-SAK group had a higher proportion of STR≥70%within 60-90 minutes after PCI(58.3%vs.40.3%,P=0.009);a lower proportion of pathological Q waves(59.1%vs.74.1%,P=0.040);a lower rate of Q wave progression(14.8%vs.43.2%,P＜0.001);a higher rate of Q wave disappearance(12.5%vs.3.7%,P=0.027);and a higher proportion of hs-cTnT peaking within 12 hours of symptom onset[31/40(77.5%)vs.17/33(51.5%),P=0.027].Regarding the safety outcome,no significant difference in BARC≥type 3 bleeding was found between the two groups during hospitalization(P＞0.05).Conclusions For STEMI patients who were expected to undergo primary PCI within 120 minutes of symptom onset,the facilitated PCI with half-dose r-SAK significantly increased the proportion of STR≥70%at 60-90 minutes after PCI,reduced the formation of pathological Q waves,and shortened the time to peak hs-cTnT,without increasing the risk of bleeding,which should be an alternative reperfusion strategy worthy of further study.

China has become the country with the highest global burden of heart failure(HF).Despite the widespread use of prognostic-improving medications today,the mortality rate of HF remains high,reaching 13.7％at one year-particularly among patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction(HFrEF).HF interventional device therapy(structural intervention)targets the structural factors underlying HF,including atrial pressure,ventricular remodeling,and valvular intervention.It leverages the heart's intrinsic physiological properties and pathological progression mechanisms to deliver treatments through interventions without external active forces,achieving anatomical or functional repair.This field has emerged as a rapidly growing area and plays an increasingly critical role in HF management.This article provides a comprehensive review and summary of the latest advancements in HF and cardiomyopathy interventional therapy over the past year.It covers various novel technologies and products currently in the research phase,aiming to provide an in-depth analysis of the current status and future directions of HF interventional therapy,and further advance the development of this discipline.

With the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence(GAI)technologies,their widespread application in academic research and writing is continuously expanding the boundaries of sci-entific inquiry.However,this trend has also raised a series of ethical and regulatory challenges,inclu-ding issues related to authorship,content authenticity,citation accuracy,and accountability.In light of the growing involvement of AI in generating academic content,establishing an open,controllable,and trustworthy ethical governance framework has become a key task for safeguarding research integrity and maintaining trust within the academic community.This expert consensus outlines ethical requirements across key stages of AI-assisted academic writing-including topic selection,data management,citation practices,and authorship attribution.It aims to clarify the boundaries and ethical obligations surrounding AI use in academic writing,ensuring that technological tools enhance efficiency without compromising in-tegrity.The goal is to provide guidance and institutional support for building a responsible and sustainable research ecosystem.

China has become the country with the highest global burden of heart failure(HF).Despite the widespread use of prognostic-improving medications today,the mortality rate of HF remains high,reaching 13.7％at one year-particularly among patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction(HFrEF).HF interventional device therapy(structural intervention)targets the structural factors underlying HF,including atrial pressure,ventricular remodeling,and valvular intervention.It leverages the heart's intrinsic physiological properties and pathological progression mechanisms to deliver treatments through interventions without external active forces,achieving anatomical or functional repair.This field has emerged as a rapidly growing area and plays an increasingly critical role in HF management.This article provides a comprehensive review and summary of the latest advancements in HF and cardiomyopathy interventional therapy over the past year.It covers various novel technologies and products currently in the research phase,aiming to provide an in-depth analysis of the current status and future directions of HF interventional therapy,and further advance the development of this discipline.

Icaritin(ICT)is an 8-isopentenylflavonoid,which is the main effective component of the tra-ditional Chinese medicine Epimedium.Previously,we found that Icaritin inhibits the growth of glioblasto-ma(GBM)cells.Herein we aim to study the in vivo anti-GBM effectiveness of Icaritin and explore its mechanism.The results of MTT assay,flow cytometry,comet assay and cellular immunofluorescence as-say in vitro showed that ICT inhibited the proliferation of four kinds of GBM cells,U87,U251,U118 and A172,induced early apoptosis(P＜0.001)and late apoptosis(P＜0.05)in U87 cells,induced DNA damage in U87 cells,and blocked the growth of U87 cells at the G0/G1 phase(P＜0.0001)in a concen-tration-time-dependent manner.In vivo subcutaneous tumor transplantation tumor experiments showed that feeding 200 mg/kg(P＜0.01)and 400 mg/kg(P＜0.001)ICT had a significant inhibitory effect on the growth of GBM subcutaneous tumors,and had no significant toxic effects on heart,liver,spleen,lung and kidney tissues.The results of network pharmacological analysis,molecular docking and cellular thermodynamic experiments showed that there were 26 possible target proteins between ICT and GBM,a-mong which the expression of p53 in GBM tissues was significantly(P＜0.001)higher than in normal tis-sues,and the binding energy of ICT and p53 was lower;cellular thermodynamic experiments verified that ICT significantly enriched the level of p53 in the living cells of GBM,which indicated that ICT could tar-get p53.The expression of key proteins in the DNA damage repair and apoptosis-associated FOXO signa-ling pathway was detected by ICT.The results showed that the expression of ATR(P＜0.01),P53(P＜0.001),P21(P＜0.05)and γ-H2AX(P＜0.05)was up-regulated,whereas the expression of Cyc-lin E1(P＜0.01),E2F1(P＜0.05),CDK2(P＜0.01),Rb(P＜0.001),p-Rb(P＜0.0001)and WRN(P＜0.0001)expression were down-regulated.There was no significant change in the expres-sion of FOXO 1 in the FOXO pathway or a significant down-regulation of its phosphorylation level.This study demonstrated that ICT could effectively inhibit the growth of GBM cells in vivo.It targets p53 to regulate the DNA damage repair pathway and FOXO signaling pathway to induce GBM cell cycle arrest and apoptosis.

Objective:To evaluate the efficacy and safety of blinatumomab in adult patients with relapsed/refractory(R/R)or measurable residual disease(MRD)positive B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia(B-ALL)in the real world.Methods:The clinical data of 30 B-ALL patients received at least 1 course of blinatumomab therapy in the Chinese PLA General Hospital from January 1st,2021 to December 31st,2023 were retrospectively analyzed,including pre-treatment baseline clinical feature,post-treatment complete response(CR),CR with partial hematologic recovery(CRh),CR with incomplete hematologic recovery(CRi),complete MRD response rate,MRD response rate(MRD＜10-4),overall survival(OS),and disease-free survival(DFS),as well as drug-related adverse reactions.Results:Among 5 patients who were not assessed 4 were MRD negative and 1 did not receive bone marrow biopsy.In the R/R B-ALL group(13 cases),11 patients achieved CR/CRh/CRi and 10 patients achieved complete MRD response.In MRD+group(12 cases),9 patients achieved overall MRD response and 7 patients achieved complete MRD response.The median follow-up time was 8.4(95％CI:6.3-10.4)months.The median OS was 15.5(95％CI:0.7-30.3)months in the R/R group,while not reached in the MRD+group.The median DFS of the two groups were not reached.Drug-related adverse reactions occurred in 22 patients,and pyrexia was the most common(13 cases).Grade ≥3 adverse reactions occurred in 15 patients,and neutropenia was the most common(9 cases).Cytokine release syndrome occurred in 6 patients,including 5 cases with grade 1 and 1 case with grade 3.No patients interrupted therapy or died due to drug-related adverse reactions.Conclusion:Blinatumomab is effective in the treatment of R/R or continuous MRD+B-ALL with acceptable adverse reactions.

Objective:To explore the interrelationship between brain functional networks and features in functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI)of patients with Alzheimer's disease(AD),and to construct mixed-function networks(MFN),and apply them in machine learning classification models to improve the accuracy of AD classification.Methods:102 AD patients and 227 healthy subjects in the Alzheimer's Neuroimaging Initiative(ADNI)dataset were retrospectively analyzed.The partial correlation brain network of the blood oxygen level dependent(BOLD)signal was calculated and fused with low-frequency wave amplitude(ALFF),fractional low-frequency wave amplitude(fALFF)and local consistency(ReHo)features to construct MFN.Network topology parameters were extracted,and a variety of machine learning classification models were constructed based on MFN topological parameters,accuracy,precision,recall and area under the curve(AUC)were used to evaluate the predictive efficiency of the models.Results:By constructed MFN and calculated intra group to inter group ratio(IIGR),35 features could be obtained from ALFF,fALFF and ReHo feature topological parameter analysis,after rank sum test and FDR correction,there were statistical differences among 28 features(P＜0.05).The classification results show that,all the five classifiers have high classification performance on the test data set.The accuracy,precision and recall rates of random forest(RF),adaptive lifting algorithm(AdaBoost),guided aggregation algorithm(Bagging)and support vector machine(SVM)were all 99.7％,and the AUC values were up to 100％,99.5％,99.1％and 99.5％,respectively.The accuracy(98.5％),precision(98.5％),recall(98.5％),and AUC(99.1％)of the multi-layer perceptron(MLP)were slightly lower than other models,but remained excellent.It was worth noting that RF has the highest AUC value of all models at 100.0％,while Bagging has the lowest AUC value(99.1％)in the integrated approach.The results of performance comparison show that,MFN classification model can significantly improve the recognition and classification of AD disease,and greatly improve the performance of various indicators of the classifier.The results showed that,MFN classification model was superior to intelligent classification based fusion,DBN-based multitask learning,PVT-TSVM,unsupervised learning and clustering,SVM and SVM of degree 3 polynomial kernel function in key indicators such as accuracy(99.13％),AUC(99.42％),recall rate(99.46％)and specificity(99.42％)with plasma proteins,machine learning algorithms.It was further proved that MFN classification model has good generalization ability and robustness in AD disease classification.Conclusion:The AD classification model constructed based on brain mixed function network topology parameters and machine learning can improve the accuracy of AD classification.

Nitrogen narcosis is a neurological syndrome that manifests when humans or animals encounter hyperbaric nitrogen, resulting in a range of motor, emotional, and cognitive abnormalities. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is known for its significant involvement in regulating motivation, cognition, and action. However, its specific contribution to nitrogen narcosis-induced hyperlocomotion and the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here we report that exposure to hyperbaric nitrogen notably increased the locomotor activity of mice in a pressure-dependent manner. Concurrently, this exposure induced heightened activation among neurons in both the ACC and dorsal medial striatum (DMS). Notably, chemogenetic inhibition of ACC neurons effectively suppressed hyperlocomotion. Conversely, chemogenetic excitation lowered the hyperbaric pressure threshold required to induce hyperlocomotion. Moreover, both chemogenetic inhibition and genetic ablation of activity-dependent neurons within the ACC reduced the hyperlocomotion. Further investigation revealed that ACC neurons project to the DMS, and chemogenetic inhibition of ACC-DMS projections resulted in a reduction in hyperlocomotion. Finally, nitrogen narcosis led to an increase in local field potentials in the theta frequency band and a decrease in the alpha frequency band in both the ACC and DMS. These results collectively suggest that excitatory neurons within the ACC, along with their projections to the DMS, play a pivotal role in regulating the hyperlocomotion induced by exposure to hyperbaric nitrogen.
Animals ; Gyrus Cinguli/drug effects* ; Male ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Locomotion/drug effects* ; Neurons/drug effects* ; Mice ; Nitrogen/toxicity* ; Inert Gas Narcosis/physiopathology* ; Corpus Striatum/physiopathology*

The ventral anterior (VA) nucleus of the thalamus is a major target of the basal ganglia and is closely associated with the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). Notably, the VA receives direct innervation from the hypothalamic histaminergic system. However, its role in PD remains unknown. Here, we assessed the contribution of histamine to VA neuronal activity and PD motor deficits. Functional magnetic resonance imaging showed reduced VA activity in PD patients. Optogenetic activation of VA neurons or histaminergic afferents significantly alleviated motor deficits in 6-OHDA-induced PD rats. Furthermore, histamine excited VA neurons via H1 and H2 receptors and their coupled hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated channels, inward-rectifier K⁺ channels, or Ca²⁺-activated K⁺ channels. These results demonstrate that histaminergic afferents actively compensate for Parkinsonian motor deficits by biasing VA activity. These findings suggest that targeting VA histamine receptors and downstream ion channels may be a potential therapeutic strategy for PD motor dysfunction.
Animals ; Histamine/metabolism* ; Male ; Oxidopamine/toxicity* ; Rats ; Ventral Thalamic Nuclei/physiopathology* ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Disease Models, Animal ; Parkinson Disease/metabolism* ; Neurons/physiology* ; Humans ; Optogenetics