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Chronic inflammatory pain is a severe clinical symptom that aggravates the life quality of patients and places a huge economic burden on individuals and society. As one complementary and alternative therapy, electroacupuncture (EA) is widely used in clinical practice to treat chronic inflammatory pain based on its safety and efficacy. Previous studies have revealed the potential role of adenosine, neuropeptides, and inflammatory factors in EA analgesia in various pain models, but the identity of some of the signaling pathways involved remain unknown. In the present study, we explored whether neuregulin1 (NRG1)-ErbB4 signaling is involved in EA analgesia in inflammatory pain. Repeated EA treatment at the acupoints Zusanli (ST36) and Sanyinjiao (SP6) for 3 consecutive days remarkably attenuated mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia in complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA)-treated mice, with an increased expression of NRG1 in spinal cord (SC). We found that ErbB4 kinase participated in both the EA and NRG1 mediated analgesic effects on inflammatory pain by pharmacological inhibition or genetic ablation ErbB4 in vivo. Intriguingly, the mice with conditional knockout of ErbB4 from PV+ interneurons in SC showed abnormal basal mechanical threshold. Meanwhile, NRG1 treatment could not relieve tactile allodynia in PV-Erbb4–/– mice or AAV-PV-Erbb4–/– mice after CFA injection. These experimental results suggest that regulating NRG1-ErbB4 signaling in SC could reduce pain hypersensitivity and contribute to EA analgesia in inflammatory pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-dimensional (2D) metal oxides have been of great interest owning to their particular properties such as rapid electron transfer capability. Herein, we present a novel ultrathin single-crystalline bismuth oxide (Bi2O3) nanosheet wrapped by reduce graphene oxide (rGO), which exhibits rapid electron and Li ion transfer in Li-ion battery anode. The 2D profile of both Bi2O3 and rGO sheets enables them to contact steadily, forming a sandwiched structure, which is beneficial for the transport of electrons and Li ions. The Bi2O3@rGO anodes exhibit a capacity of 218 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles at a rate of 0.5 C, which exceeds the bare Bi2O3 and some reports about Bi2O3 anodes. In addition, density of states (DOSs) and band gap structures of the Bi2O3 wrapped with rGO have been investigated through density functional theory (DFT) calculations, which show that the band gap is improved and the electron transfer is significantly enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a tunable metamaterial absorber (MA) based on polymer network liquid crystal (PNLC) in the terahertz (THz) frequency band. Under the optimal polymerization condition, through electrical control of the orientation of the PNLC embedded in the frequency selective surface, the resonant frequency of the absorber can be tuned from 416.5 to 405.0 GHz, corresponding to fractional frequency bandwidth of 2.8%. The experimental results show that the proposed MA based on the PNLC offers an adjustment time of 10 ms and recovery time of 85 ms, which is significantly faster than the tunable metamaterial devices based on conventional nematic liquid crystal (LC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]