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The basal ganglia (BG) plays a key role in action selection. Physiological experiments have suggested that the reciprocal interaction between tonically active neurons (TANs) and dopamine (DA) is closely related to reward-based behaviors. However, the functional role of TAN-DA interaction in action selection remains unclear. In this study, a cortico-BG model including TAN-DA interaction mechanism is developed to explore the action selection mechanism of BG. The results show that in the default case, direct, indirect, and hyperdirect pathways are responsible for promoting, suppressing, and stopping the formation of stimulus-action associations, respectively. In the case of reinforcement learning, a single rewarded action is selected according to the combination of the TAN-DA dependent reinforcement mechanism and Hebbian mechanism with a gradual transfer from the former to the latter. Besides, a longer exploratory phase occurs when switching the reward to a new action because additional trials are required to overcome the habituation previously induced by the Hebbian mechanism. In the Parkinsonian state, the reinforcement mechanism is disrupted, and the resting tremor occurs due to dopamine deficiency. Although the model's performance significantly improves due to the levodopa treatment, it is still inferior to the healthy state. This phenomenon is consistent with the experimental results and is explained theoretically via the TAN pause duration and phasic DA release. Furthermore, the model's performances in multi-action selection further verify the rationality of the TAN-DA-dependent reinforcement mechanism. Our work provides a more complete framework for studying the action selection mechanism of basal ganglia., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare there is no conflicts of interest., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

Introduction: Rhubarb is a frequently used and beneficial traditional Chinese medicine. Wild resources of these plants are constantly being depleted, meaning that rhubarb products have been subjected to an unparalleled level of adulteration. Consequentially, reliable technology is urgently required to verify the authenticity of rhubarb raw materials and commercial botanical drugs. Methods: In this study, the barcode-DNA high-resolution melting (Bar-HRM) method was applied to characterize 63 rhubarb samples (five Polygonaceae species: Rheum tanguticum , Rh. palmatum , Rh. officinale , Rumex japonicus and Ru. sp.) and distinguish the rhubarb contents of 24 traditional Chinese patent medicine (TCPM) samples. Three markers, namely ITS2, rbcL and psbA-trnH , were tested to assess the candidate DNA barcodes for their effectiveness in distinguishing rhubarb from its adulterants. A segment from ITS2 was selected as the most suitable mini-barcode to identify the botanical drug rhubarb in TCPMs. Then, rhubarbs and TCPM samples were subjected to HRM analysis based on the ITS2 barcode. Results: Among the tested barcoding loci, ITS2 displayed abundant sites of variation and was effective in identifying Polygonaceae species and their botanical origins. HRM analysis based on the ITS2 mini-barcode region successfully distinguished the authenticity of five Polygonaceae species and eight batches of TCPMs. Of the 18 TCPM samples, 66.7 % (12 samples) were identified as containing Rh. tanguticum or Rh. officinale . However, 33.3 % were shown to consist of adulterants. Conclusions: These results demonstrated that DNA barcoding combined with HRM is a specific, suitable and powerful approach for identifying rhubarb species and TCPMs, which is crucial to guaranteeing the security of medicinal plants being traded internationally., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Shen, Zhang, Qiu, Yang, Lu, Li, Zhang, Tang, Wang, Zhu, Bao and Ding.)

Mach-Zehnder interferometer is a common device in quantum phase estimation and the photon losses in it are an important issue for achieving a high phase accuracy. Here we thoroughly discuss the precision limit of the phase in the Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a coherent state and a superposition of coherent states as input states. By providing a general analytical expression of quantum Fisher information, the phase-matching condition and optimal initial parity are given. Especially, in the photon loss scenario, the sensitivity behaviors are analyzed and specific strategies are provided to restore the phase accuracies for symmetric and asymmetric losses.