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Introduction: Depression is a common comorbidity in Parkinson's Disease (PD) and treatment of depression can significantly support PD management. Zishen pingchan granules (ZPG), a traditional Chinese herbal formula, may help ameliorate depressive symptoms in PD patients. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of ZPG remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the impact of ZPG on serum levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein (CRP), and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in PD patients with depression. Methods: Eighty PD patients treated with pramipexole but still experiencing mild to moderate depression symptoms were randomly allocated to a group receiving 12-week ZPG treatment (n = 40) or placebo (n = 40). The Hamilton Depression Scale 17 items (HAM-D-17) was utilized to evaluate changes in depressive symptoms from baseline over 12 weeks, while the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scales (UPDRS) part 3 was employed to assess changes in motor symptoms over the same duration. Serum levels of BDNF, IL-1β, IL-6, CRP, and TNF-α were measured at baseline and post-treatment. Results: Seventy-one participants completed the study. Following treatment, both groups showed significantly reduced HAMD scores. The placebo group demonstrated a decrease in BDNF levels, while the ZPG group showed an increase in IL-6 levels post-treatment. In the examination of the group-time interaction, the ZPG group exhibited a greater decrease in HAMD scores and increase in IL-6 levels compared to the placebo group. Conversely, the placebo group showed a greater decrease in BDNF levels compared to the ZPG group. However, no significant group differences were observed in UPDRS part 3 change scores or serum levels of IL-1β, CRP, or TNF-α change from baseline. Conclusion: ZPG may potentially ameliorate depressive symptoms in PD patients, with the potential mechanism involving mitigation of reductions in serum BDNF level and an increase in IL-6 level.

Background: Presently, neurotransmitter deficits in GBA-related Parkinson's disease (GBA-PD) and relationships with cognitive impairment are poorly understood. A better understanding of neurotransmitter impairments in GBA-PD — particularly in the newly diagnosed drug-naïve phase — may support developing targeted intervention strategies. We aimed to investigate patterns of neurotransmitter deficits in GBA-PD and idiopathic PD (iPD) and cognitive performance correlations. Methods: We recruited 189 newly diagnosed PD patients for GBA sequencing. Voxel-wise gray matter volume (GMV) was evaluated in a subgroup of 17 GBA-PD, 100 iPD, and 32 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HCs). The JuSpace toolbox covering various neurotransmitter maps helped assess whether the spatial patterns of GMV alterations in GBA-PD or iPD patients (relative to HCs) were associated with specific neurotransmitter systems. Results: GBA-PD patients indicated widespread GM atrophy in the fronto-temporal-occipital region compared with HCs. GMV atrophy was spatially correlated in GBA-PD and iPD with serotonergic, dopaminergic, and acetylcholinergic pathway distributions (p

It is a challenge to design an effective algorithm utilizing problem features in automated test case generation for path coverage (ATCG-PC). A feature of ATCG-PC “similar paths are usually executed by similar test cases” was touched by a few scholars and can be further exploited to design more effective algorithms. Inspired by this feature, this paper proposes a two-stage local search strategy, denoted dual scatter search (DS) strategy, which concatenates two improved scatter search strategies with different search behaviors. The first stage aims to fully exploit the discovered test cases to search for desired test cases, and the latter stage aims to mine the unexploited areas of the first stage via using less computational overhead. Then, a backtracking search optimization algorithm with dual scatter search strategy (BSA-DS) is proposed, which incorporates DS strategy into the backtracking search optimization algorithm (BSA) with strong exploration capability. BSA is first introduced into the field of ATCG-PC. The performance of BSA-DS and some state-of-the-art algorithms is tested on twelve popular benchmark programs. Experimental studies demonstrate that BSA-DS achieves the highest path coverage with the fewest test cases and running time on at least eight out of the twelve programs.

Hydrolysis of ZIF-8 in water becomes a key barrier to improving the electrochemical performance of ZIF-derived catalysts. In this paper, dopamine is used to inhibit ZIF-8 hydrolysis. The obtained Fe0.1-NC NPs catalysts exhibit excellent electrochemical activity with a half-wave potential of 0.834 V in 0.1 M KOH electrolyte and satisfactory stability and methanol tolerance. Physical and chemical characterizations suggest that its excellent electrochemical performance is ascribed to the hierarchical porous structure and the synergistic effect of Fe-NX active sites and Fe3O4 nanoparticles. The synthesis solvent of the catalysts is aqueous solution, which provides the possibility for large-scale production.