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

Objective To evaluate the safety and efficacy of needle grasper(hernia needle)assisted two-port laparoscopic cyst fenestration with deroofing combined with high ligation of the processus vaginalis for pediatric abdominoscrotal hydrocele.Methods Clinical data of 15 patients undergoing two-port laparoscopic surgery between January 2019 and January 2023 were retrospectively analyzed.Two 5-mm ports were created at bilateral umbilical margins.The needle grasper was introduced through the abdominal wall projection of the cyst,grasping the avascular area to facilitate cyst deroofing using endoscopic scissors or electrocautery hooks.High ligation of the processus vaginalis was achieved via traction-assisted double silk ligation under laparoscopic guidance.Results All the procedures were successfully completed laparoscopically.The mean operative time was(28.2±6.8)min for unilateral cases(n=9)and(35.2±4.6)min for bilateral cases(n=6).No postoperative complications such as hematoma or infection occurred.The patients were followed up for 12-16 months after surgery.Ultrasound showed no recurrence of hydrocele and no complications such as iatrogenic cryptorchidism or testicular atrophy.Conclusion The application of needle grasper in conjunction with two-port laparoscopic procedures effectively achieves intracorporeal cyst deroofing with fenestration and double ligation of the internal inguinal ring during abdominoscrotal hydrocele repair,demonstrating high safety profiles.

Objective To compare the efficacy of testicular repositioning and fixation combined with decompression of the testicular fascial compartment (testicular leucotomy+sheath flap repair) versus conventional testicular repositioning and fixation in surgery for testicular torsion in children. Methods Fifty-six patients with testicular torsion admitted to Hebei Provincial Children's Hospital from January 2019 to October 2023 were selected and divided into the observation group (26 cases) and the control group (30 cases),and the observation group was treated with testicular reorientation and fixation+testicular fascial compartment decompression,while the control group was treated with conventional testicular reorientation and fixation. There was no statistically significant difference in the age and left and right sides of the patients in the two groups (P>0.05). The intraop-erative bleeding,postoperative testicular atrophy,the presence of postoperative scrotal infection and postoperative hospitalization time of the two groups were compared. Results All patients successfully completed the operation without intraoperative complications. There was no statistically significant difference between the observation group and the control group in terms of intraoperative bleeding,postoperative scrotal infection rate and postoperative hospitalization time (P>0.05);the postoperative testicular atrophy rate of the observation group was significantly lower than that of the control group (P<0.05). Conclusions Testicular restoration and fixation+testicular fascial compartment decompression can effectively reduce the pressure of testicular fascial compartment,reduce the ischemia-reperfusion injury of testis,and reduce the occurrence of testicular atrophy,which is safe and effective in the treatment of testicular torsion in children.

Objective:To analyze the feasibility and safety of laparoscopic transhepatic section biliary exploration without T-tube drainage in the treatment of intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile duct stones.Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical data of 200 patients with intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile duct stones who underwent surgical treatment in Ankang Central Hospital from January 2020 to December 2024, including 79 males and 121 females, with the average age of (64.1±6.1) years. Among the 200 patients, 100 underwent laparoscopic hepatectomy and stone removal through transhepatic section cholangiography and choledochoscopy and were included in the observation group. Another 100 patients underwent laparoscopic hepatectomy, common bile duct incision, choledochoscopic exploration and stone removal, and T-tube drainage and were included in the control group. The intraoperative blood loss, operation time, postoperative hospital stay, hospitalization cost, postoperative pain score, time to get out of bed and move around, recovery time of intestinal function, abdominal drainage time, total complication rate, recurrence of stones, biliary tract infection, etc. were compared between the two groups.Results:The operation time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative hospital stay and hospitalization cost of the observation group (165.8±29.9 min, 158.9±23.7 ml, 8.8±1.8 d and 46, 037.8±312.6 yuan, respectively) were all lower than those of the control group (220.3±37.5 min, 232.5±36.7 ml, 12.5±2.5 d, and 57 006.2±528.5 yuan) and the differences were statistically significant (all P<0.05). The postoperative pain score of the control group was (4.8±1.3) points, the postoperative time to get out of bed for activities was (1.6±0.5) d, the postoperative recovery time of intestinal function was (3.2±0.7) d, and the abdominal drainage time was (5.0±0.8) d. All were higher than those of the observation group (3.2±0.8) points, (0.8±0.2) d, (1.8±0.5) d, and (2.5±0.6) d, and the differences were statistically significant (all P<0.05). The total incidence of complications, recurrence of stones and infection rate of biliary tract in the observation group were 6.0%(6/100), 3.0%(3/100) and 2.0%(2/100) respectively, which were lower than those in the control group at 36.0%(36/100), 11.0%(11/100) and 9.0%(9/100). The differences were all statistically significant (all P<0.05). Conclusion:Laparoscopic transhepatic section biliary exploration without T-tube drainage for the treatment of intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile duct stones is feasible and safe.

In recent years, gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) have increased incidence and mortality, and most GIST is caused by the activation mutation of the c-KIT gene. Therefore, c-KIT has become a promising therapeutic target of GIST. At present, the drugs approved for the treatment of GIST including imatinib, sunitinib, regorafenib and ripretinib, are mostly prone to developing resistance and accompanied by various degrees of adverse reactions. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new c-KIT inhibitors to solve the problem of resistance. In this study, we investigated the anti-tumor effect of a novel c-KIT inhibitor PN17-1 on gastrointestinal stromal tumor GIST-882 cells in vitro. We found that PN17-1 significantly inhibited the proliferation, colony formation and migration ability of GIST-882 cells, and significantly downregulated the protein expression levels of p-c-KIT and its downstream signals p-AKT, p-STAT5 and p-ERK in GIST-882 cells. In addition, PN17-1 induced apoptosis in GIST-882 cells, and the apoptosis may be mainly related to the mitochondrial-dependent endogenous pathway. In conclusion, the novel c-KIT inhibitor PN17-1 is a promising anti-GIST drug, and this study provides new ideas for further development of c-KIT inhibitors in the future.

OBJECTIVE: As an age-related neurodegenerative disease, the prevalence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) increases with age. Within the framework of traditional Chinese medicine, spleen-kidney deficiency syndrome (SKDS) is recognized as the most frequent MCI subtype. Due to the covert and gradual onset of MCI, in community settings it poses a significant challenge for patients and their families to discern between typical aging and pathological changes. There exists an urgent need to devise a preliminary diagnostic tool designed for community-residing older adults with MCI attributed to SKDS (MCI-SKDS). METHODS: This investigation enrolled 312 elderly individuals diagnosed with MCI, who were randomly distributed into training and test datasets at a 3:1 ratio. Five machine learning methods, including logistic regression (LR), decision tree (DT), naive Bayes (NB), support vector machine (SVM), and gradient boosting (GB), were used to build a diagnostic prediction model for MCI-SKDS. Accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, precision, F1 score, and area under the curve were used to evaluate model performance. Furthermore, the clinical applicability of the model was evaluated through decision curve analysis (DCA). RESULTS: The accuracy, precision, specificity and F1 score of the DT model performed best in the training set (test set), with scores of 0.904 (0.845), 0.875 (0.795), 0.973 (0.875) and 0.973 (0.875). The sensitivity of the training set (test set) of the SVM model performed best among the five models with a score of 0.865 (0.821). The area under the curve of all five models was greater than 0.9 for the training dataset and greater than 0.8 for the test dataset. The DCA of all models showed good clinical application value. The study identified ten indicators that were significant predictors of MCI-SKDS. CONCLUSION The risk prediction index derived from machine learning for the MCI-SKDS prediction model is simple and practical; the model demonstrates good predictive value and clinical applicability, and the DT model had the best performance. Please cite this article as: Ai YT, Zhou S, Wang M, Zheng TY, Hu H, Wang YC, Li YC, Wang XT, Zhou PJ. Development of a machine learning-based risk prediction model for mild cognitive impairment with spleen-kidney deficiency syndrome in the elderly. J Integr Med. 2025; 23(4): 390-397.
Humans ; Cognitive Dysfunction/diagnosis* ; Aged ; Male ; Female ; Machine Learning ; Spleen ; Aged, 80 and over ; Kidney ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional

Exploring the variability of the intestinal flora of patients with hepatic blastocysticercosis and searching for members of the intestinal microflora that may play a role in the disease process by means of macro-genome sequencing technology. A case-control study was used to include fecal samples from patients with hepatic vesicular schistosomiasis admitted to Qinghai Provincial People′s Hospital between October 2023 and January 2024 and individuals attending health checkups. The experimental group (AE group) consisted of 10 patients with liver vesicular schistosomiasis and the control group (NC group) consisted of 9 individuals attending health checkups. Macrogenomic sequencing was performed on these two groups of samples using the Illumina Novaseq 6000 sequencing platform, using fastp (v0.20.1) to remove junctions, and bbmap (v38.93-0) to remove the hosted sequences, followed by sequence splicing using MEGAHIT (v1.2.9), and then using prodigal (v2.6.3) to The spliced scaffold was subjected to ORF prediction and translated into amino acid sequences, followed by the construction of a non-redundant gene set using MMSeqs2 (v13.45111), and finally compared with the non-redundant gene set using salmon (v1.8.0). Species were annotated by the non-redundant database, species abundance was calculated in each sample, and the two sets were tested using Wilcoxon rank sum test. Finally, the differences in intestinal flora between the two groups were statistically analyzed using linear discriminant analysis, and the correlation between the differential intestinal flora and clinical indicators was analyzed using redundancy analysis (RDA). The results showed that the effective data volume of each sample was distributed from 10.41 to 12.46 G. The number of ORFs in the de-redundantly constructed gene catalogue (non-redundant gene set) was 4 951 408, and the annotation rate of the non-redundant genes was 97.97% when compared with the NR database. The ages of the study subjects in the two groups were (44.78±4.58) years in the NC group and (42.90±10.44) years in the AE group, and the difference was not statistically significant ( t=0.530, P=0.476). The two groups were matched for body mass index (BMI) ( t=2.368, P=0.142), gender ( χ2=0.200, P=0.655), and dietary habits. There was no statistically significant difference in alpha diversity in the AE group (ACE index, t=0.942; chao1 index, t=0.947; shannon index, t=0.813, the simpson′s index, t=0.613, P>0.05), while beta diversity analysis showed significant differences in the overall structure of the two communities (Stress=0.054 5). A total of 120 species were annotated at the phylum level, of which two differed. While 1 736 species were annotated at the genus level, 69 were different, and 309 were different at the species level. The AE group ranked the top 6 in terms of abundance of Anaplasma, Escherichiaceae, Clostridium, Alternaria, Ruminalia, and Treponema spp. at the genus level; whereas, Segatella, Prevotella, E. faecalis, Rossella, and beneficial rod-shaped bacteria were more abundant in the NC group. There were differences in the abundance and diversity of intestinal flora between the two groups, and the structure of community composition was significantly different. Statistical results by linear discriminant analysis (LDA) showed that LDA scores >2 in the NC group included beneficial bacillus spp. and E. faecalis spp. in young infants, etc. LDA scores >2 in the AE group at the mid-species level included Clostridium polterococcus, unknown microorganisms in the genus Clostridium intestinalis, Hathaway′s Henkett′s bacillus, and Clostridium oryzae in the genus Clostridium refractory to culture and small Clostridium spp. in the AE group. Clostridium intestinalis. The RDA results showed a negative correlation between beneficial rod genera and liver function indices, and a positive correlation between Clostridium intestinalis genera and liver function indices. In conclusion, patients with hepatic blastomycosis have altered intestinal flora abundance and diversity, with significant structural changes in community composition and differences in several genera, including Mycobacterium anisopliae and Clostridium intestinalis, and imbalances in the intestinal flora may affect hepatic function by influencing intestinal metabolites and may have an impact on the development of hepatic blastomycosis, a finding that warrants further in-depth study.

Objective:To investigate the in vitro bacteriostatic effect of ethyl alcohol extract of Moutan Cortex (EAEMC) on Candida tropicalis and its effect on virulence factors, including aspartic protease, hemolysin, phospholipase, esterase, lipase activities and biofilm. Methods:EAEMC powder was obtained by ultrasonic extraction, decompression concentration and lyophilization; the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of EAEMC on 21 clinical strains and one standard strain of Candida tropicalis were determined by microdilution. Five extracellular enzyme activities of Candida tropicalis and the effect of EAEMC on them were detected by the plate assay, and the results were analyzed by ANOVA. The biofilm model of Candida tropicalis was constructed in vitro, and the inhibition rate of EAEMC on Candida tropicalis biofilm was evaluated using the thiazolyl blue (MTT) method. Results:The MIC of EAEMC against Candida tropicalis BNCC335988 was 12.5 g/L and the MBC value was 25 g/L, while for the clinical strains, the MIC was 12.5-25 g/L and the MBC was 25-50 g/L. Aspartic protease, esterase and hemolytic activities of Candida tropicalis were positive, but phospholipase and lipase showed negative activities. At a concentration of 1/2 MIC of EAEMC, the aspartic protease and hemolytic activities of Candida tropicalis were completely inhibited the aspartic protease and hemolytic activities of Candida tropicalis were completely inhibited and the esterase activity was completely inhibited at a concentration of MIC of EAEMC. The inhibition of Candida tropicalis BNCC335988 biofilm by EAEMC reached more than 70% at a concentration of 2MIC, more than 80% at a concentration of 4MIC, and more than 90% at a concentration of 8MIC. Conclusion:EAEMC can achieve bacteriostatic effects by reducing the aspartic protease, esterase and hemolysin activities of Candida tropicalis, as well as inhibiting biofilm formation.

Objective:To investigate the factors influencing early recurrence for patients with initially unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who underwent salvage liver resection (SLR) following transcatheter arterial chemoembolization-based downstaging treatment, and construct a predictive model to evaluate its predicting performance.Methods:The retrospective cohort study was constructed. The clinicopathological data of 305 patients with initially unresectable HCC who were admitted to 4 medical centers in China, including the Third Affiliated Hospital of Naval Medical University (Shanghai Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital) et al, from January 2019 to December 2021 were collected. There were 286 males and 19 females, aged (48.7±10.4)years. A total of 133 patients who were admitted from January 2019 to December 2020 were set as the training cohort, and the other 172 patients who were admitted from January to December 2021 were set as the validation cohort. Observation indicators: (1) postoperative recurrence-free survival in HCC patients; (2) analysis of factors influencing postoperative early recurrence in HCC patients; (3) construction and validation of the predictive model. Comparison of measurement data with normal distribution between groups was conducted using the independent sample t test. Comparison of count data between groups was conducted using the chi-square test. Comparison of ordinal data was conducted using the rank sum test. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted using the Cox regre-ssion model. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate survival. The Log-rank test was used for survival analysis. The predicting performance of the model was evaluated using the concordance index (C-index) and the area under curve (AUC) of time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and the accuracy of the model was validated using the calibration curve. The total net gain of the model was evaluated using the decision curve. Results:(1) Postoperative recurrence-free survival in HCC patients. The recurrence-free survival time of 133 HCC patients in the training cohort was 10.0(range, 1.5-24.0)months, with 1-, 2-year recurrence-free survival rate of 47.3% and 36.8%. The recurrence-free survival time of 172 HCC patients in the validation cohort was 11.0(range, 1.0-24.0)months, with 1-, 2-year recurrence-free survival rate of 51.7% and 37.2%. There was no significant difference in recurrence-free survival between patients in the training cohort and the validation cohort ( χ2=0.075, P>0.05). (2) Analysis of factors influencing postoperative early recur-rence in HCC patients. Results of multivariate analysis showed that tumor burden prior to down-staging treatment, grade of albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) score prior to SLR, alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) half-life prior to SLR, and tumor response prior to SLR were independent factors influencing early recurrence in HCC patients after surgery [ hazard ratio=3.212, 2.526, 2.304, 1.575, 95% confidence interal ( CI) as 1.262-8.175, 1.324-4.818, 1.477-3.595, 1.138-2.180, P<0.05]. (3) Construction and validation of the predictive model. A nomogram predictive model for postoperative early recurrence was constructed base on the results of multivariate analysis. The C-index of predictive model was 0.786 for the training cohort and 0.734 for the validation cohort. The AUC of ROC curve of nomogram predictive model for 12-, 18-, and 24-month recurrence-free survival rate in the training cohort were 0.890 (95% CI as 0.836-0.944), 0.895 (95% CI as 0.842-0.947), and 0.887 (95% CI as 0.831-0.942), respectively. The AUC of ROC curve of nomogram predictive model for 12-, 18-, and 24-month recurrence-free survival rate in the validation cohort were 0.845 (95% CI as 0.781-0.909], 0.888 (95% CI as 0.826-0.950), and 0.919 (95% CI as 0.870-0.968), respectively. Results of calibration curve showed high consistency between the predicted results of nomogram predictive model and actual outcomes. Results of decision curve showed the nomogram predictive model with a good total net gain at a threshold of 0.10-0.50. Conclusions:Tumor burden prior to downstaging treatment, grade of ALBI score prior to SLR, AFP half-life prior to SLR, and tumor response prior to SLR are independent factors influencing early recurrence in initially unresectable HCC patients undergoing SLR following downstaging treatment. The nomogram predictive model based on these factors can effectively evaluate the prognosis of this patient population.

Exploring the variability of the intestinal flora of patients with hepatic blastocysticercosis and searching for members of the intestinal microflora that may play a role in the disease process by means of macro-genome sequencing technology. A case-control study was used to include fecal samples from patients with hepatic vesicular schistosomiasis admitted to Qinghai Provincial People′s Hospital between October 2023 and January 2024 and individuals attending health checkups. The experimental group (AE group) consisted of 10 patients with liver vesicular schistosomiasis and the control group (NC group) consisted of 9 individuals attending health checkups. Macrogenomic sequencing was performed on these two groups of samples using the Illumina Novaseq 6000 sequencing platform, using fastp (v0.20.1) to remove junctions, and bbmap (v38.93-0) to remove the hosted sequences, followed by sequence splicing using MEGAHIT (v1.2.9), and then using prodigal (v2.6.3) to The spliced scaffold was subjected to ORF prediction and translated into amino acid sequences, followed by the construction of a non-redundant gene set using MMSeqs2 (v13.45111), and finally compared with the non-redundant gene set using salmon (v1.8.0). Species were annotated by the non-redundant database, species abundance was calculated in each sample, and the two sets were tested using Wilcoxon rank sum test. Finally, the differences in intestinal flora between the two groups were statistically analyzed using linear discriminant analysis, and the correlation between the differential intestinal flora and clinical indicators was analyzed using redundancy analysis (RDA). The results showed that the effective data volume of each sample was distributed from 10.41 to 12.46 G. The number of ORFs in the de-redundantly constructed gene catalogue (non-redundant gene set) was 4 951 408, and the annotation rate of the non-redundant genes was 97.97% when compared with the NR database. The ages of the study subjects in the two groups were (44.78±4.58) years in the NC group and (42.90±10.44) years in the AE group, and the difference was not statistically significant ( t=0.530, P=0.476). The two groups were matched for body mass index (BMI) ( t=2.368, P=0.142), gender ( χ2=0.200, P=0.655), and dietary habits. There was no statistically significant difference in alpha diversity in the AE group (ACE index, t=0.942; chao1 index, t=0.947; shannon index, t=0.813, the simpson′s index, t=0.613, P>0.05), while beta diversity analysis showed significant differences in the overall structure of the two communities (Stress=0.054 5). A total of 120 species were annotated at the phylum level, of which two differed. While 1 736 species were annotated at the genus level, 69 were different, and 309 were different at the species level. The AE group ranked the top 6 in terms of abundance of Anaplasma, Escherichiaceae, Clostridium, Alternaria, Ruminalia, and Treponema spp. at the genus level; whereas, Segatella, Prevotella, E. faecalis, Rossella, and beneficial rod-shaped bacteria were more abundant in the NC group. There were differences in the abundance and diversity of intestinal flora between the two groups, and the structure of community composition was significantly different. Statistical results by linear discriminant analysis (LDA) showed that LDA scores >2 in the NC group included beneficial bacillus spp. and E. faecalis spp. in young infants, etc. LDA scores >2 in the AE group at the mid-species level included Clostridium polterococcus, unknown microorganisms in the genus Clostridium intestinalis, Hathaway′s Henkett′s bacillus, and Clostridium oryzae in the genus Clostridium refractory to culture and small Clostridium spp. in the AE group. Clostridium intestinalis. The RDA results showed a negative correlation between beneficial rod genera and liver function indices, and a positive correlation between Clostridium intestinalis genera and liver function indices. In conclusion, patients with hepatic blastomycosis have altered intestinal flora abundance and diversity, with significant structural changes in community composition and differences in several genera, including Mycobacterium anisopliae and Clostridium intestinalis, and imbalances in the intestinal flora may affect hepatic function by influencing intestinal metabolites and may have an impact on the development of hepatic blastomycosis, a finding that warrants further in-depth study.