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BACKGROUND: Primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) is a neurodegenerative disease. Previous structural and functional studies of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have demonstrated widespread dysfunction of spontaneous activity in the PACG brain. In this study, we applied a data-driven graph theory approach of functional connectivity density (FCD) mapping to investigate the altered local and global functional connectivity (FC) of the cortex in PACG. METHODS: Forty-five PACG patients (53.28±10.79 years, 17 males/28 females) and 46 well-matched healthy controls (HCs) (52.67±11.01 years,18 males/28 females) received resting-state fMRI scans. All PACG patients finished complete ophthalmologic examinations, including retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT), intraocular pressure (IOP), average cup to disc ratio (A-C/D), and vertical cup to disc ratio (V-C/D). We calculated the between-group FCD difference for short-range and long-range in each voxel. Then, we generated the intrinsic FC of the seed region with the whole brain. Finally, correlations were investigated between FCD value of the altered regions and clinical variables. RESULTS: PACG patients showed increased short-range FCD in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)/insula/parahippocampal gyrus and right IFG/insula (P

Primary intracranial fibrosarcoma (PIF) is an exceedingly rare tumor. Only about 50 cases have been reported in the literature. Here, we present a case of a 20-year-old male who presented with a sudden-onset headache. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain showed a hemorrhagic extra-axial space-occupying mass. The mass was surgically resected, and biopsy was consistent with PIF. The patient was lost to follow-up and presented with recurrence 3 months later. He expired from complications of the tumor. PIF is a diagnosis of exclusion: More common intracranial tumors should first be excluded. Biopsy is necessary to diagnose PIF.

Purpose The aim of this study was to measure brain alterations in patients with herpes zoster (HZ) and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) and compare their differences using a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) technique. Materials and methods Thirty-three patients with HZ, 22 patients with PHN, and 28 well-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. Magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired for all subjects and analyzed using the VBM method. The changes in gray matter volume (GMV) in HZ and PHN groups were compared with those in HC group, and the GMV differences were also compared between the PHN and HZ groups. Further correlation analysis and receiver operating characteristic curves were used to confirm the significance of GMV changes in various brain regions. Results Compared with HCs, decreased GMV was found in the bilateral insular lobes and increased GMV was found in the bilateral thalamus in the HZ group. In the PHN group, GMV decreased in the bilateral insula lobes, right middle frontal gyrus, bilateral precentral gyrus, and left postcentral gyrus and increased in the left cerebellar posterior lobe, right parahippocampal gyrus, and right lentiform nucleus. In addition, the PHN group exhibited increased GMV in the left cerebellar tonsil, culmen, and left lentiform nucleus and decreased GMV in the right precentral gyrus compared with the HZ group. Further correlation analysis and receiver operating characteristic curves revalidate the significance of most of these abnormal brain regions. Conclusion The VBM method revealed widespread GMV abnormalities in HZ and PHN patients. The brains of PHN patients have broader abnormalities in nonpain-related regions, suggesting the complexity of a central mechanism. When PHN patients were compared with HZ patients, the left cerebellar tonsil, culmen, and left lentiform nucleus corresponded to greater area under the curve, suggesting that abnormalities in these regions are risk factors for HZ patients' transformation to PHN.

Objective In this study, we aimed to investigate the frequency-dependent spontaneous neural activity in primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) method. Patients and methods In total, 52 PACG individuals (24 males and 28 females) and 52 normal-sighted controls (NS; 24 males and 28 females) who were closely matched in age, sex, and education underwent resting-state magnetic resonance imaging scans. A repeated-measures ANOVA and post hoc two-sample t-tests were conducted to analyze the different ALFF values in two different frequency bands (slow-4, 0.027-0.073 Hz and slow-5, 0.010-0.027 Hz) between the two groups. Pearson's correlation analysis was conducted to reveal the relationship between the mean ALFF values and clinical variables in the PACG group. Results Compared to the NS group, the PACG group had high ALFF values in the right inferior occipital gyrus and low ALFF values in the left middle occipital gyrus, left precentral gyrus, and left postcentral gyrus in the slow-4 band. The PACG group had high ALFF values in the right inferior occipital gyrus and low ALFF values in the left inferior parietal lobule, left postcentral gyrus, and right precentral/postcentral gyrus in the slow-5 band. Specifically, we found that the abnormal ALFF values in the bilateral posterior cingulate gyrus and bilateral precuneus were higher in the slow-4 than in the slow-5 band, whereas ALFF in the bilateral frontal lobe, right fusiform, and right cerebellum posterior lobe were higher in the slow-5 than in the slow-4 band. The greater mean ALFF values of the right inferior occipital gyrus were associated with smaller retinal nerve fiber layer thickness and greater visual fields in PACG group in the slow-4 band. Conclusion Our results highlighted that individuals in the PACG group showed abnormal spontaneous neural activities in the visual cortices, sensorimotor cortices, frontal lobe, frontoparietal network, and default mode network at two frequency bands, which might indicate impaired vision and cognition and emotion function in PACG individuals. These findings offer important insight into the understanding of the neural mechanism of PACG.

A dynamic textile weaving simulator is established to connect weaving actions to fabric patterns and microstructures. It utilizes the Digital Element Approach (DEA) under the framework of the software package Digital Fabric and Composite Analyser (DFCA). The key components of a Jacquard loom are explicitly modelled utilising the ‘hole/no hole’ principle. Yarn interlacing motion is guided by weaving matrix specified by steps. Shedding, weft insertion, beat-up, and take-up actions are modelled and explained. The inter-fibre contact force, fibre forces (tensile, shear, and bending), and boundary conditions in the weft direction are considered. The weaving process of five cells in the warp direction of a 10-layer 3D orthogonal woven fabric is simulated at the filament level to derive for its microstructure. The results show that the fabric microstructure continues to change after being woven, and the thickness and length of each individual cell decrease with further weaving steps. The microstructures of newly woven cells converge after the weaving of two further cells in the lengthwise direction. The microstructure of the second cell closely matches that of an actual weaved fabric, as evaluated by microscopy images. Penetration occurs between adjacent weft yarns in the same column, which fundamentally changes their microstructure, composition, and material properties. Parametric studies show that the ratio of binder to warp yarn tension determines the fabric thickness. Increases in the take-up length and binder yarn tension lead to a decrease and increase in the reed tension, respectively. This work provides valuable insights into fabric design and manufacture instruction.

Lili Gu,1,* Shunda Hong,2,* Jian Jiang,2 Jiaqi Liu,2 Xintian Cao,1 Qing Huang,2 Xianjun Zeng,2 Fuqing Zhou,2 Daying Zhang1 1Department of Pain, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China 2Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Purpose: Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) detrimentally affects brain function. Recent studies have suggested that frequency-dependent changes in electroencephalography in chronic pain patients and blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) fluctuations can reflect neuronal activity in different frequencies. The current study aimed to investigate PHN-related brain oscillatory activity in a specific frequency band by using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) method.Materials and methods: ALFF changes were analyzed across different frequencies (slow-4 band: 0.027–0.073 Hz; slow-5 band: 0.01–0.027 Hz; and typical band: 0.01–0.08 Hz) in the brains of PHN patients and compared with those in the brains of healthy controls (HCs) during resting-state fMRI. Eighteen HCs and PHN patients underwent fMRI scanning.Results: In the typical band, compared with HCs, PHN patients showed prominently decreased ALFF in the right prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 10/46) and increased ALFF in the bilateral brain stem/cerebellum anterior lobe (BS/CAL). In the slow-4 band, PHN patients exhibited significantly decreased ALFF in the bilateral cuneus/lingual gyrus and the right prefrontal cortex. In the slow-5 band, PHN patients presented significantly increased ALFF in the bilateral BS/CAL and left parieto-occipital cortex. Moreover, the increased ALFF in the left parieto-occipital cortex in the slow-5 band was positively correlated with VAS scores (P=0.022), and the increased ALFF in the bilateral BS/CAL in the slow-5 band was positively correlated with disease duration (P=0.020).Conclusion: Our results suggested that the intrinsic brain activity of PHN patients was abnormal and frequency dependent, especially the bidirectional alteration in ALFF across the slow-4 and slow-5 frequencies in the brains of PHN patients. Keywords: amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation, postherpetic neuralgia, functional magnetic resonance imaging, resting state, pain&nbsp

Background To evaluate functional connection density (FCD) in patients with diabetic optic neuropathy (DON) using the resting functional connectivity (FC) method, and to determine the abnormal areas of brain activity. Methods Patients with DON (n=22; 10 male, 12 female) and healthy controls (HCs; n=22; 10 male, 12 female) were included in the study. The basic characteristics of the groups were matched. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was conducted with participants at rest, and long- and short-range FCD (long FCD and IFCD, respectively) were measured. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was also conducted to determine whether DON and HC participants could be distinguished using fMRI indicators. Results Compared with HCs, the long FCD values of the left lingual gyrus, right lingual gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, and medial and lateral cingulate gyri were decreased in patients with DON. Further, the IFCD values of the left superior temporal gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, right inferior temporal gyrus, left cerebellar area 8, and right cerebellar Crus2 area were higher in patients with DON than in the HCs. Conclusions DON is associated with abnormal spontaneous brain activity. Our findings contribute to elucidating the mechanisms underlying the neuropathology of DON, and provide direction for further clinical research.

Background: Asthma is one of the most common chronic respiratory diseases in children. CD4+T cell plays a key role in the immune response which affects the pathogenesis of asthma. Genetic level of CD4+T cells on childhood allergic asthma remains unclear. In our study, we aimed to identify potential different expressed genes (DEGs) and pathways related to childhood allergic asthma by performing bioinformatics analysis of dataset.Methods: GSE40887 dataset from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) was used for bioinformatics analysis. Limma package in R was used to detect DEGs. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were carried by Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID). The construction of protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of the DEGs was performed by Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes (STRING) and Cytoscape. Hub genes were identified through cytoHubba in Cytoscape. Results: In all, 200 up-regulated genes and 69 down-regulated genes were identified. Up-regulated genes were mainly enriched in: protein self-association, cellular response to hydrogen peroxide, plasma membrane. As for down-regulated genes, enzyme binding and detection of chemical stimulus involved in sensory perception of smell, nucleolus were enriched. Only one KEGG pathway was enriched: olfactory transduction. In addition, top 10 hub genes were found including: PRPF19, CCAR1, CWC15, PRPF38A, PRCC, KRR1, RPS3, PDCD11, MKI67, and NUF2. Conclusion: Several DEGs (SNORD46, RPS3, OR5E1P, OR56A5 and OR51B6, and PDCD11), one pathway (olfactory transduction) and one biological process (cellular response to hydrogen peroxide) were found might associate to childhood allergic asthma. Our results may provide inspiration for other researchers on DEGs and pathways in CD4+T cells of childhood allergic asthma.

The composite-material laminate structure will inevitably encounter connection problems in use. Among them, mechanical connections are widely used in aerospace, automotive and other fields because of their high connection efficiency and reliable connection performance. Milling parameters are important for the opening quality. In this paper, continuous-glass-fiber-reinforced-polypropylene (GFRPP) laminates were chosen to investigate the effects of different cutters and process parameters on the hole quality. The delamination factor and burr area were taken as the index to characterize the opening quality. After determining the optimal milling tool, the process window was obtained according to the appearance of the milling hole. In the selected process parameter, the maximum temperature did not reach the PP melting temperature. The best hole quality was achieved when the spindle speed was 18,000 r/min and the feed speed was 1500 mm/min with the corn milling cutter.

Introduction Previous neuroimaging studies have suggested that brain functional impairment and hyperarousal occur during the daytime among patients with chronic insomnia disorder (CID); however, alterations to the brain's intrinsic functional architecture and their association with sleep quality have not yet been documented. Methods In this study, our aim was to investigate the insomnia‐related alterations to the intrinsic connectome in patients with CID (n = 27) at resting state, with a data‐driven approach based on graph theory assessment and functional connectivity density (FCD), which can be interpreted as short‐range (intraregional) or long‐range (interregional) mapping. Results Compared with healthy controls with good sleep, CID patients showed significantly decreased long‐range FCD in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortices and the putamen. These patients also showed decreased short‐range FCD in their multimodal‐processing regions, executive control network, and supplementary motor‐related areas. Furthermore, several regions showed increased short‐range FCD in patients with CID, implying hyper‐homogeneity of local activity. Conclusions Together, these findings suggest that insufficient sleep during chronic insomnia widely affects cortical functional activities, including disrupted FCD and increased short‐range FCD, which is associated with poor sleep quality., Using graph theory assessment and functional connectivity density (FCD) methods to investigate the insomnia‐related alterations to the intrinsic connectome in patients with CID patients, we found that insufficient sleep during chronic insomnia widely affects cortical functional activities, including disrupted FCD and increased short‐range FCD, which is associated with poor sleep quality.

BACKGROUND Liver cancer is a common cancer with high morbidity and mortality. Due to the large toxic side effects of chemotherapeutic drugs and the overexpression of multidrug resistance genes in liver cancer, no effective chemotherapeutic drug has yet been found. Therefore, the search for a highly effective, low-toxic, and safe natural anticancer therapy is a hot issue. MATERIAL AND METHODS SMMC-7721 cells (a hepatocellular carcinoma cell line) were treated with different concentrations of oleanolic acid (OA) plus autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA) (3-MA+OA) or chloroquine (CQ) plus OA (CQ+OA). We used MTT and Hoechst 33258 staining methods to determine the proliferation and apoptotic effect of OA on cells. Flow cytometry was used to detect apoptosis. Mitochondrial function was assessed by measuring mitochondrial membrane potential and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) concentration. To evaluate the ability of OA on apoptosis and autophagy mechanisms on SMMC 7721 cells, the related protein expression for apoptosis, autophagy, and the autophagic pathway were detected and analyzed by western blot. RESULTS OA can inhibit and induce apoptosis of SMMC-7721 in a dose-dependent manner. Compared with the control group, OA significantly reduced the intracellular mitochondrial membrane potential, and the intracellular ATP concentration was also significantly reduced. Moreover, OA reduced the expression of p-Akt and p-mTOR. The expression of p62 was decreased, and LC3-II and Beclin-1 protein expression levels increased. After inhibiting autophagy with 3-MA or CQ, compared with OA alone, cell mitochondrial membrane potential and ATP concentration were significantly reduced, cell p62 expression was reduced, and LC3-II expression was increased, apoptosis-related protein Bax protein was increased, and Bcl-2 protein was decreased, which suggested that 3-MA or CQ treatment increased OA-induced apoptosis of SMMC-7721 cells. This suggested that OA activated autophagy of SMMC-7721 cells in a protective autophagic manner. CONCLUSIONS The study findings suggest that OA combined with autophagy inhibitor 3-MA can better exert its anticancer effect.

Background Although previous studies have shown that intra-network abnormalities in brain functional networks are correlated with clinical/cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS), there is little information regarding the pattern of causal interactions among cognition-related resting-state networks (RSNs) in different disease stages of relapsing–remitting MS (RRMS) patients. We hypothesized that abnormalities of causal interactions among RSNs occurred in RRMS patients in the acute and remitting phases. Methods Seventeen patients in the acute phases of RRMS, 24 patients in the remitting phases of RRMS, and 23 appropriately matched healthy controls participated in this study. First, we used group independent component analysis to extract the time courses of the spatially independent components from all the subjects. Then, the Granger causality analysis was used to investigate the causal relationships among RSNs in the spectral domain and to identify correlations with clinical indices. Results Compared with the patients in the acute phase of RRMS, patients in the remitting phase of RRMS showed a significantly lower expanded disability status scale, modified fatigue impact scale scores, and significantly higher paced auditory serial addition test (PASAT) scores. Compared with healthy subjects, during the acute phase, RRMS patients had significantly increased driving connectivity from the right executive control network (rECN) to the anterior salience network (aSN), and the causal coefficient was negatively correlated with the PASAT score. During the remitting phase, RRMS patients had significantly increased driving connectivity from the rECN to the aSN and from the rECN to the visuospatial network. Conclusions Together with the disease duration (mean disease duration

Objective Using functional connectivity density (FCD) mapping measured by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI), an ultrafast data-driven graph theory approach, we attempted to study the abnormalities in neural activity of young survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and to explore the neuropathological evidence of chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment of patients. Methods Twenty young survivors of ALL and 18 well-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited in this study. All ALL patients and healthy controls underwent rs-fMRI scans and completed neurocognitive testing. The between-group differences in short-range and long-range FCD were calculated by the option of degree centrality (DC) in MATLAB software after preprocessing. The correlations between the FCD value and each of the neurocognitive outcomes were analyzed in the ALL patients. Results The group-averaged FCD maps showed similar spatial patterns between the two groups. Compared with the HCs, ALL patients showed decreased long-range FCD in regions of the bilateral lingual gyrus, cingulate cortex, hippocampal gyrus, and right calcarine fissure. Simultaneously, decreased regions in the short-range FCD map were the bilateral lingual gyrus, cingulate cortex, parahippocampal gyrus and right calcarine fissure. Increased functional connectivity (FC) was observed between the region with decreased long-range FCD and the posterior cerebellar lobe, and decreased FC was observed between the region and the middle occipital gyrus, cuneus and lingual gyrus. Thus, there existed no brain areas with increased FCD. The decreased short-range FCD value of ALL patients was positively correlated with the score on the Digit Span Test (Forward), and the increased FC value was negatively correlated with the score on the Trail Making Test part A. Conclusion Our results suggest the altered functional connectivity of young survivors of ALL in the posterior region of the brain and posterior lobe of the cerebellum. Alterations in spontaneous neuronal activity seem to parallel the neurocognitive testing, which indicates that the rs-fMRI could be used as a neuroimaging marker for neurological impairment in ALL patients.

BackgroundThe outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) has caused more than 2.5 million cases of Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) in the world so far, with that number continuing to grow. To control the spread of the disease, screening large numbers of suspected cases for appropriate quarantine and treatment is a priority. Pathogenic laboratory testing is the gold standard but is time-consuming with significant false negative results. Therefore, alternative diagnostic methods are urgently needed to combat the disease. Based on COVID-19 radiographical changes in CT images, we hypothesized that Artificial Intelligence’s deep learning methods might be able to extract COVID-19’s specific graphical features and provide a clinical diagnosis ahead of the pathogenic test, thus saving critical time for disease control.Methods and FindingsWe collected 1,065 CT images of pathogen-confirmed COVID-19 cases (325 images) along with those previously diagnosed with typical viral pneumonia (740 images). We modified the Inception transfer-learning model to establish the algorithm, followed by internal and external validation. The internal validation achieved a total accuracy of 89.5% with specificity of 0.88 and sensitivity of 0.87. The external testing dataset showed a total accuracy of 79.3% with specificity of 0.83 and sensitivity of 0.67. In addition, in 54 COVID-19 images that first two nucleic acid test results were negative, 46 were predicted as COVID-19 positive by the algorithm, with the accuracy of 85.2%.ConclusionThese results demonstrate the proof-of-principle for using artificial intelligence to extract radiological features for timely and accurate COVID-19 diagnosis.Author summaryTo control the spread of the COVID-19, screening large numbers of suspected cases for appropriate quarantine and treatment measures is a priority. Pathogenic laboratory testing is the gold standard but is time-consuming with significant false negative results. Therefore, alternative diagnostic methods are urgently needed to combat the disease. We hypothesized that Artificial Intelligence’s deep learning methods might be able to extract COVID-19’s specific graphical features and provide a clinical diagnosis ahead of the pathogenic test, thus saving critical time. We collected 1,065 CT images of pathogen-confirmed COVID-19 cases along with those previously diagnosed with typical viral pneumonia. We modified the Inception transfer-learning model to establish the algorithm. The internal validation achieved a total accuracy of 89.5% with specificity of 0.88 and sensitivity of 0.87. The external testing dataset showed a total accuracy of 79.3% with specificity of 0.83 and sensitivity of 0.67. In addition, in 54 COVID-19 images that first two nucleic acid test results were negative, 46 were predicted as COVID-19 positive by the algorithm, with the accuracy of 85.2%. Our study represents the first study to apply artificial intelligence to CT images for effectively screening for COVID-19.

In this retrospective case series, chest CT scans of 21 symptomatic patients from China infected with the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) were reviewed, with emphasis on identifying and characterizing the most common findings. Typical CT findings included bilateral pulmonary parenchymal ground-glass and consolidative pulmonary opacities, sometimes with a rounded morphology and a peripheral lung distribution. Notably, lung cavitation, discrete pulmonary nodules, pleural effusions, and lymphadenopathy were absent. Follow-up imaging in a subset of patients during the study time window often demonstrated mild or moderate progression of disease, as manifested by increasing extent and density of lung opacities. © RSNA, 2020

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There are two severe limitations of current flexural wave metasurface based on local resonance mechanism or modal conversion method: low transmittance and only a single manipulation parameter. Inspired by the interaction between notches and flexural waves, we propose a high transmittance and multi-parameter independent manipulation metasurface composed of an array notches. Firstly, based on the phase shift accumulation method, a full 2π phase shift is achieved by modulating four notch parameters independently. Secondly, the refraction and focusing metasurfaces are designed based on the generalized Snell's law and compared with the simulation results. Finally, the designed focusing metasurfaces is validated by corresponding experiments. The four metasurfaces have a good performance for broadband flexural wave focusing, and the numerical and experimental focal lengths are in great agreement with the theoretical values. The notched metasurface provides an innovative way to manipulate flexural waves without resonators, which can be used in the applications of energy harvesting, waveguide design and ultrasonic detection.

Accurate and reasonable wind speed prediction system has a significant impact on the utilization of wind energy. A novel combination forecasting model based on Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network and BP neural network is designed in this paper. This model combines the principle of deep learning algorithm and the improved BP neural network to deal with nonlinear wind speed prediction. Before the prediction, singular spectrum analysis (ssa) and complete ensemble empirical model decomposition adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) are selected as the data pretreatment part to de-noise the original wind speed data and decompose it into multiple components. This part is conducive to improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of wind speed data and simplifying the characteristics of wind speed data. Then, in order to reduce the error accumulation and computation redundancy, fuzzy entropy (FE) is used to calculate the time complexity of each component, according to the Spearman correlation, the inherent mode function (IMF) components are recombined to form a new subsequence. Experimental results show that the error accumulation can be reduced by 48.65% for dataset 1 and 29.53% for dataset 2, and the operation time can be reduced by about 50% for two datasets. To avoid the limitation of a single model, introducing the LSTM and improved BPNN which improved by sparrow search algorithm (SSA) two different prediction models are used to predict the sub sequences with high complexity and the low complexity subsequences, respectively. Finally, the predicted values of the models are superimposed to get the final values. In order to verify the validity of the proposed model, the final predictions, compared with six different prediction models, show that this model can achieve the best performance and obtain higher prediction accuracy. Such as the performance evaluation indexes (RMSE = 0.051, MAPE = 0.929%) are smallest obtained from dataset1 by one-step prediction, and (RMSE = 0.086, MAPE = 0.966%) are smallest obtained from dataset2 by one-step prediction. In addition, the Pearson correlation between the predicted value and the true wind speed value obtained by the prediction model applied to the two data sets is the highest 99.17% and 98.73%, respectively.

Urban parks are a major blue–green infrastructure in urban ecosystems, and they are widely regarded as being extremely effective in mitigating the urban heat island (UHI) effect caused by extensive urbanization and high temperatures associated with climate change. A scientific understanding of the cooling effects of urban parks can assist urban planning and decision makers in mitigating the UHI effect and improving urban sustainability. However, little is known about the cooling effects of parks from an accumulation-impact perspective resulting from spatial continuity. In this study, 31 urban parks in Fuzhou, China, were identified using Landsat data, and the land surface temperature was calculated using the radiative transfer equation (RTE) algorithm. Two accumulation-impact cooling indices, the park cooling intensity (PCI) and the park cooling gradient (PCG), and two maximum-impact cooling indices, the park cooling area (PCA) and the park cooling efficiency (PCE), were then used to explore the park cooling effects. The park area and park perimeter were found to be positively and significantly correlated with the PCA, PCI, and PCG and negatively and significantly correlated with the PCE. The results showed that 61% of urban park areas were situated within “cold-spot areas” with respect to the land surface temperature. A ward system cluster analysis showed that the 31 urban parks could be classified into three cooling capacity bundles based on the four normalized park cooling indices, each of which exhibited different cooling effects. The concept of the threshold value of efficiency (TVoE) based on the park cooling gradient was then calculated to determine the optimal park size. The TVoE was determined as 1.08 ha, which implies that urban park planning should consider designing urban parks of this size because they provide the most effective improvement in urban thermal comfort. These findings are valuable for providing a comprehensive understanding of the cooling effects of urban parks and providing implications for sustainable urban planning and design.

The study aimed to compare the whole-brain gray matter volume (GMV) and white matter volume (WMV) difference between primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG) patients and health controls (HCs) using a voxel-based morphometry method. A total of 27 patients with PACG (17 males and 10 females) and 27 HCs (17 males and 10 females), closely matched for age and education, were enrolled in the study. All subjects underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. The MRI data were processed using SPM8 software in voxel-based morphometry 8 toolbox. The relationship between the mean GMV values of brain regions and the clinical features including psychological testing and mean retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness in PACG groups were analyzed by using Pearson correlation. Compared with HCs, PACG patients showed significantly decreased GMV values in the left cerebellum posterior lobe (CPL), right extra-nuclear, and right superior temporal gyrus. In contrast, PACG patients showed significantly increased GMV values in the left CPL, right CPL, right superior temporal gyrus, right thalamus and right insula (P

Objective This study was performed to investigate structural abnormalities of the white matter in patients with comitant exotropia using the tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) method. Methods Diffusion tensor imaging data from magnetic resonance images of the brain were collected from 20 patients with comitant exotropia and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. The FMRIB Software Library was used to compute the diffusion measures, including fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD). These measures were obtained using voxel-wise statistics with threshold-free cluster enhancement. Results The FA values in the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFO) and right inferior longitudinal fasciculus were significantly higher and the RD values in the bilateral IFO, forceps minor, left anterior corona radiata, and left anterior thalamic radiation were significantly lower in the comitant exotropia group than in the healthy controls. No significant differences in the MD or AD values were found between the two groups. Conclusions Alterations in FA and RD values may indicate the underlying neuropathologic mechanism of comitant exotropia. The TBSS method can be a useful tool to investigate neuronal tract participation in patients with this disease.

People’s perceptions on landscapes are important in the design process, and are closely associated with viewing behavior. However, little is known about the perceived landscape complexity of different urban green space settings in relation to people’s preference and eye movements. This study, therefore, investigated the influence of landscape complexity on preference ratings and eye fixation of lawn, path, plaza, and waterfront settings of urban green spaces. Six images for each type of setting were selected as stimuli and further classified into three categories based on the participants’ mean ratings of landscape complexity. Forty valid responses were obtained. The results indicated that participants’ ratings of landscape complexity and preference were positively correlated in all types of settings. There were significant differences in fixation count and average fixation duration between images with different levels of landscape complexity in lawn and waterscape settings. Fixation count was positively correlated with landscape complexity level in all lawn, plaza and waterscape setting images. Moreover, average fixation duration was negatively correlated with landscape complexity level in all lawn and waterscape setting images. Preference ratings had no definite relationships with fixation counts and average fixation duration. The findings of this study will help designers and urban park managers to effectively incorporate public perceptions in design and decision-making process. In addition, it provides new insights into the relationship between eye movements and landscape complexity and sheds some light on the application of eye tracking technology in landscape perception studies.

Suhua Huang,1 Fuqing Zhou,2,3 Jian Jiang,2,3 Muhua Huang,2,3 Xianjun Zeng,2,3 Shan Ding,1 Honghan Gong2,3 1Department of Radiology, Jiangxi Province Children’s Hospital, 2Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, 3Jiangxi Province Medical Imaging Research Institute, Nanchang, People’s Republic of China Abstract: Several neuroimaging studies have suggested that brain impairment and plasticity occur in patients with chronic primary insomnia (CPI); however, the effects of insomnia on the intrinsic organization of the brain remain largely unknown. In this study, a voxel-based functional connectivity strength (FCS) assessment, a data-driven method based on a theoretical approach, was applied to investigate the effects of insomnia on the intrinsic organization of the whole brain in 27 treatment-naïve CPI patients and 26 well-matched healthy controls (HCs). Compared with HCs, CPI patients exhibited decreased FCS primarily in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the right medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), the left basal ganglia/insula, and the right cerebellum anterior lobe (CAL) due to decreased functional connectivity patterns. These results suggest that poor sleep quality could impair FCS within the brain, including the MPFC and the CAL, which are important for cognitive control and modulating motor and limbic functions. Additionally, a receiver operator characteristic analysis revealed that altered FCS has moderate sensitivity (76.9%–88.5%) and specificity (59.3%–70.4%) as a reference indicator to discriminate CPI patients from HCs. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for abnormal intrinsic brain activity in CPI patients and might improve our understanding of the pathophysiological processes that occur in insomnia patients. Keywords: functional connectivity strength, disconnection, chronic primary insomnia, sleep disorders, resting-state fMRI

Xin Huang,1,2,* Sheng-Hong Li,3,* Fu-Qing Zhou,3 Ying Zhang,1 Yu-Lin Zhong,1 Feng-Qin Cai,3 Yi Shao,1 Xian-Jun Zeng3 1Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Jiangxi Province Clinical Ophthalmology Institute and Oculopathy Research Centre, Nanchang, 2Department of Ophthalmology, The First People’s Hospital of Jiujiang City, Jiujiang, 3Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Jiangxi Province Medical Imaging Research Institute, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally tothis work Objective: To investigate the underlying regional homogeneity (ReHo) of brain-activity abnormalities in patients with comitant strabismus (CS) and their relationship with behavioral performance.Methods: Twenty patients with CS (ten men and ten women) and 20 (ten men and ten women) age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy controls (HCs) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. The ReHo method was used to assess local features of spontaneous brain activities. Patients with CS were distinguished from HCs by receiver operating characteristic curve. Correlation analysis was performed to explore the relationship between the observed mean ReHo values of the different brain areas and behavioral performance.Results: Compared to HCs, the patients with CS showed significantly increased ReHo values in the right inferior temporal cortex/fusiform gyrus/cerebellum anterior lobe, right lingual gyrus, and bilateral cingulate gyrus. We did not find any relationship between the observed mean ReHo values of the different brain areas and behavioral performance.Conclusion: CS causes dysfunction in many brain regions, which may explain the fusion compensation in CS. Keywords: comitant strabismus, regional homogeneity, functional magnetic resonance imaging, resting state

Using Kendall's coefficient of concordance (KCC-) and Coherence (Cohe-) regional homogeneity (ReHo) to explore the alterations of brain local functional connectivity in acute and remitting relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), and its clinical relevance. 18 acute RRMS, 26 remitting RRMS and 20 healthy controls received resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. After data preprocessing and ReHo (KCC-ReHo and Cohe-ReHo) calculation, analysis of variance and followed post hoc analysis was used to compare the KCC-ReHo or Cohe ReHo maps across groups. After analysis of variance analysis, regions with significant among-group differences detected by the 2 ReHo analysis were overlapped, these overlapped regions located in the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG), right SFG, left cuneus and right middle occipital gyrus (P

Disrupted white matter structure has been established in patients with diffuse axonal injury (DAI), but morphological changes in gray matter and local intrinsic activity in the short and midterm (before 6 months) have not been documented in DAI patients. We hypothesized that regionally selective atrophy observed in deep gray matter in the short-term and mid-term periods in patients with mild-to-moderate DAI, local atrophy, and/or dysfunction would be related to clinical characteristics. We evaluated the changes in regional density and synchronization in 18 DAI patients separately using Diffeomorphic Anatomical Registration through Exponentiated Lie algebra-enhanced voxel-based morphometry and regional homogeneity (ReHo). Compared with the controls, DAI patients showed a decreased density in the bilateral thalami and decreased ReHo values in the ventral anterior and ventral lateral nuclei of the bilateral thalami. Pearson's correlation analysis showed that decreased density in the bilateral thalami was correlated negatively with time since injury and decreased ReHo values in the ventral anterior and ventral lateral nuclei of the bilateral thalami were associated with a worsened motor assessment scale. These findings suggest that mild-to-moderate traumatic DAI within the short and midterm could lead to thalamic atrophy and that dysfunction in the bilateral thalami is associated with declining motor function. This study could potentially provide complementary evidence as an important element in longitudinal studies.

Increasing evidence has suggested that central plasticity plays a crucial role in the development and maintenance of (chronic) nonspecific low back pain. However, it is unclear how local or short-distance functional interactions contribute to persisting low back-related leg pain (LBLP) due to a specific condition (i.e., lumbar disc herniation). In particular, the multiscale nature of local connectivity properties in various brain regions is still unclear. Here, we used voxelwise Kendall's coefficient of concordance (KCC) and coherence (Cohe) regional homogeneity (ReHo) in the typical (0.01–0.1 Hz) and five specific frequency (slow-6 to slow-2) bands to analyze individual whole-brain resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans in 25 persistent LBLP patients (duration: 36.7 ± 9.6 months) and 26 healthy control subjects. Between-group differences demonstrated significant alterations in the KCC- and Cohe- ReHo of the right cerebellum posterior lobe, brainstem, left medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral precuneus in LBLP patients in the typical and five specific frequency bands, respectively, along with interactions between disease status and the five specific frequency bands in several regions of the pain matrix and the default-mode network (P, Highlights • This study demonstrated significant interactions between disease status and five specific frequency bands in several regions. • The alterations in ReHo of five specific frequency bands were related to the duration of disease and 2-PD in LBLP patients. • It is useful to select specific frequency or the method of analyses to improve the detection of LBLP-related brain activity.

Muhua Huang,1,2 Fuqing Zhou,1,2 Lin Wu,1,2 Bo Wang,1,2 Hui Wan,3 Fangjun Li,3 Xianjun Zeng,1,2 Honghan Gong1,2 1Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, People’s Republic of China; 2Neuroradiology Laboratory, Jiangxi Province Medical Imaging Research Institute, Nanchang, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, People’s Republic of China Background and purpose: The effects of the interactions between the default mode network (DMN) and the dorsal attention network (DAN), which present anticorrelated behaviors, in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) are poorly understood. This study used resting-state functional connectivity (FC) and the Granger causality test (GCT) to examine changes in the undirected and effective functional network connectivity (FNC) between the two networks during the remitting phase in RRMS patients.Patients and methods: Thirty-three patients experiencing a clinically diagnosed remitting phase of RRMS and 33 well-matched healthy control subjects participated in this study. First, an independent component (IC) analysis was performed to preprocess the functional magnetic resonance imaging data and select resting-state networks. Then, an FNC analysis and the GCT were combined to examine the temporal correlations between the ICs of the DMN and DAN and to identify correlations with clinical markers.Results: Compared with the healthy subjects, the RRMS patients in the remitting phase showed the following: 1) significantly decreased FC within the DAN in the postcentral gyrus and decreased FC within the DMN in several regions except the parahippocampal gyrus, where increased FC was observed; 2) a relatively stable interaction between the two anticorrelated networks as well as a driving connectivity from the DAN to DMN (IC15); and 3) significantly positive correlations between the connectivity coefficient of the right superior temporal gyrus and the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale score (ρ = 0.379, p = 0.036).Conclusion: Adaptive mechanisms that maintain stable interactions might occur between the DMN and DAN during the remitting phase in RRMS patients. Keywords: default mode network, dorsal attention network, multiple sclerosis, resting-state functional MRI, Granger causality test, anticorrelation

Shunda Hong,1,* Lili Gu,2,* Fuqing Zhou,1 Jiaqi Liu,1 Muhua Huang,1 Jian Jiang,1 Laichang He,1 Honghan Gong,1 Xianjun Zeng1 1Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Pain, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore intrinsic functional connectivity patterns in patients with herpes zoster (HZ) and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). Patients and methods: Thirty-three right-handed HZ patients (13 males; mean age 57.15±9.30 years), 22 right-handed PHN patients (9 males; mean age 66.13±6.77 years), and 28 well-matched healthy controls (HC) (9 males; mean age 54.21±7.72 years) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging for intrinsic functional connectivity analyses. Functional connectivity density (FCD) was calculated and compared among the PHN, HZ, and HC groups. In addition, the Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to compare various clinical indices in the regions with abnormal FCD values. Results: Compared with the HC, both HZ and PHN patients showed significantly decreased FCD in the precuneus, and patients with HZ displayed significantly increased FCD in the brainstem/limbic lobe/parahippocampalgyrus, whereas patients with PHN displayed significantly increased FCD in the hippocampus (correlation thresholds r=0.25, voxel level of P

Impaired spontaneous regional activity and altered topology of the brain network have been observed in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). However, the mechanisms of disrupted functional connectivity (FC) and topological reorganization of the default mode network (DMN) in patients with OSA remain largely unknown. We explored whether the FC is altered within the DMN and examined topological changes occur in the DMN in patients with OSA using a graph theory analysis of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data and evaluated the relationship between neuroimaging measures and clinical variables. Resting-state data were obtained from 46 male patients with untreated severe OSA and 46 male good sleepers (GSs). We specifically selected 20 DMN subregions to construct the DMN architecture. The disrupted FC and topological properties of the DMN in patients with OSA were characterized using graph theory. The OSA group showed significantly decreased FC of the anterior-posterior DMN and within the posterior DMN, and also showed increased FC within the DMN. The DMN exhibited small-world topology in both OSA and GS groups. Compared to GSs, patients with OSA showed a decreased clustering coefficient (Cp) and local efficiency, and decreased nodal centralities in the left posterior cingulate cortex and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, and increased nodal centralities in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex and the right parahippocampal cortex. Finally, the abnormal DMN FC was significantly related to Cp, path length, global efficiency, and Montreal cognitive assessment score. OSA showed disrupted FC within the DMN, which may have contributed to the observed topological reorganization. These findings may provide further evidence of cognitive deficits in patients with OSA.

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is characterized by structural disconnection and large-scale neural network dysfunction in the resting state. However, little is known concerning the intrinsic changes in local spontaneous brain activity in patients with mTBI. The aim of the current study was to assess regional synchronization in acute mTBI patients. Fifteen acute mTBI patients and 15 sex-, age-, and education-matched healthy controls (HCs) were studied. We used the regional homogeneity (ReHo) method to map local connectivity across the whole brain and performed a two-sample t-test between the two groups. Compared with HCs, patients with acute mTBI showed significantly decreased ReHo in the left insula, left precentral/postcentral gyrus, and left supramarginal gyrus (p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected). The ReHo index of the left insula showed a positive correlation with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores across all acute mTBI patients (p < 0.05, uncorrected). The ReHo method may provide an objective biomarker for evaluating the functional abnormity of mTBI in the acute setting.

Xin Huang,1,2,* Dan Li,3,* Hai-Jun Li,3 Yu-Lin Zhong,1 Shelby Freeberg,4 Jing Bao,1 Xian-Jun Zeng,3 Yi Shao1 1Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Jiangxi Province Clinical Ophthalmology Institute, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Ophthalmology, Eye Center, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Ophthalmology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA *These authors contributed equally to this work Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate changes of brain neural homogeneity in retinal detachment (RD) patients using the regional homogeneity (ReHo) method to understand their relationships with clinical features. Materials and methods: A total of 30 patients with RD (16 men and 14 women), and 30healthy controls (HCs) (16 men and 14 women) closely matched in age and sex were recruited. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were performed for all subjects. The ReHo method was used to investigate the brain regional neural homogeneity. Patients with RD were distinguished from HCs by receiver operating characteristic curve. The relationships between the mean ReHo signal values in many brain regions and clinical features in RD patients were calculated by Pearson correlation analysis. Results: Compared with HCs, RD patients had significantly decreased ReHo values in the right occipital lobe, right superior temporal gyrus, bilateral cuneus and left middle frontal gyrus. Moreover, we found that the mean ReHo signal of the bilateral cuneus showed positive relationships with the duration of the RD (r=0.392, P=0.032). Conclusion: The RD patients showed brain neural homogeneity dysfunction in the visual pathway, which may underline the pathological mechanism of RD patients with acute vision loss. Besides, the ReHo values can reflect the progress of the RD disease. Keywords: retinal detachment, neural regional homogeneity, resting state, functional magnetic resonance imaging

Background and purpose: Previous voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies have suggested that cortical atrophy is regionally distributed in middle-aged subjects with white matter hyperintense (WMH) lesions. However, few studies have assessed cortical thickness in middle-aged WMH subjects. In this study, we examined cortical thickness as well as cortical morphometry associated with the presence of WMH lesion load in middle-aged subjects.Participants and methods: Thirty-six middle-aged subjects with WMH lesions (WMH group) and without clinical cognitive impairment, and 34 demographically matched healthy control subjects (HCS group) participated in the study. Cortical thickness was estimated using an automated Computational Anatomy Toolbox (CAT12) as the distance between the gray-white matter border and the pial surface. Individual WMH lesions were manually segmented, and WMH loads were measured. Statistical cortical maps were created to estimate differences in cortical thickness between groups based on this cortex-wide analysis. The relationship between WMH lesion loads and cerebral cortical thickness was also analyzed in CAT12.Results: Cortical thickness was significantly lower in the WMH group than in the controls in multimodal integration regions, including the right and left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), right and left frontal operculum (fO), right and left operculum parietale (OP), right and left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), and left superior temporal gyrus (STG; P < 0.01, family-wise error (FWE)-corrected). Additionally, cortical thickness was also lower in the recognition regions that contained the right temporal pole (TP), the right and left fusiform gyrus, and the left rolandic operculum (RO; P < 0.01, FWE-corrected). The results revealed that in the left superior parietal lobule (SPL), cortical thickness was higher in the WMH group than in the HCS group (P < 0.01, FWE-corrected). A voxel-wise negative correlation was found between cortical thickness and WMH lesion loads in the right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and right subcallosal cortex (P < 0.01, FWE-corrected).Conclusion: The main findings of this study suggest that middle-aged WMH subjects are more likely to exhibit cortical thinning, especially in multimodal integration and recognition- and motor-related regions. The current morphometry data provide further evidence for WMH-associated structural plasticity.

Li-Ting Chen,1,* Xiao-Le Fan,2,* Hai-Jun Li,1 Si Nie,1 Hong-Han Gong,1 Wei Zhang,3 Xian-Jun Zeng,1 Ping Long,4 De-Chang Peng1 1Department of Radiology, 2Department of General Surgery, 3Department of Pneumology, 4Department of Otolaryngology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Purpose: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep-related breathing disorder that can damage cognitive function. However, the functional network organization remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the topological properties of OSA patients using a graph theoretical analysis.Patients and methods: A total of 30 male patients with untreated severe OSA and 25 male education- and age-matched good sleepers (GSs) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations. Clinical and cognitive evaluations were conducted by an experienced psychologist. GRETNA (a toolbox for topological analysis of imaging connectomics) was used to construct the brain functional network and calculate the small-world properties (γ, λ, σ, Eglob, and Eloc). Relationships between these small-world properties and clinical and neuropsychological assessments were investigated in OSA patients.Results: The networks of both OSA patients and GSs exhibited efficient small-world topology over the sparsity range of 0.05–0.40. Compared with GSs, the OSA group had significantly decreased γ, but significantly increased λ and σ. The OSA group’s brain network showed significantly decreased Eglob (P

Purpose To investigate the altered intrinsic functional connectivity (iFC) of the primary visual cortex (V1) in primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) patients before and after surgery using resting-state functional MRI. Materials and Methods Twenty-five preoperative PACG (pre-PACG) patients and 25 well-matched healthy controls (HCs) were included in this study, and 9 PACG patients were assessed again at least 3 months after treatment (post-PACG). We generated the iFC maps of the seed regions in the centers of the left and right V1 and conducted group comparisons. Then, the relationships between the altered iFC coefficients and clinical variables were investigated in the pre-PACG patients. Results Compared with the HCs, the pre-PACG patients showed decreased iFC between the left V1 and right V2 (covering the cuneus, calcarine and lingual gyrus) and increased iFC between the left V1 and left temporal-parietal region, left frontal opercula-insula-basal ganglia region, right insula-basal ganglia region, and right inferior parietal lobule (P < 0.01, corrected). Compared with the pre-PACG patients, the post-PACG patients showed increased iFC between the left V1 and bilateral V2, and between the left V1 and left or right postcentral gyrus; in addition, they showed decreased iFC between the left V1 and the dorsal-attention and frontoparietal-control networks. In the pre-PACG patients, visual activity (VA) was positively correlated with increased iFC between the left V1 and the left temporal-parietal region or the right inferior parietal lobule. Similar patterns of alterations were observed in the right V1-iFC in both the pre- and post-PACG patients. Conclusions The primary findings have demonstrated a gradual decrease in visual information integration in the left V1-V2 pathway and VA-related functional compensation in the pre-PACG patients, generating further evidence of functional restoration in post-PACG patients.

Poplar (Populus sp.) canopy provides considerable shading in high-density plantations, imposing adverse impacts on crown characteristics relating to biomass production, such as leaf area index (LAI) and photosynthesis. However, it is yet unclear how the LAI, photosynthesis, and biomass production of poplars would respond to shading. In this study, the shading responses were investigated in three poplar genotypes with contrasting biomass performance in a high-density plantation (1667 ha−1) established six years prior to the study. A three dimensional laser scanner and a portable photosynthesis system were used to measure the canopy structure and photosynthetic parameters. Principal component analysis (PCA) and the partial least squares method (PLS) were used to determine the importance of measured variables to LAI and biomass. Among all the factors studied, LAI was one of the most related factors to biomass. The genotype with greater shade tolerance ability had higher LAI. Moreover, the high biomass genotype showed a low light compensation point (LCP) and respiration rate (Rd) accompanied with a high ratio of photosynthesis to respiration (Amax/Rd) and a high maximum photosynthetic rate (Amax). This characteristic was more distinct in the middle (M) and lower (L) crown layers than in the upper (U) crown layer. Therefore, high LAI, Amax and Amax/Rd accompanied by low LSP and Rd are the key traits in obtain a high biomass genotype. Thus, improving shade tolerance in leaves of the middle and lower canopy layer to obtain a high LAI and biomass production can be an effective breeding method.

To investigate the relationship between the amplitude of thalamic intrinsic neuronal activity, structural imaging indices, and the clinical neurological scales in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS).Twenty-three patients with RRMS and 23 healthy controls were examined by resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) scan. Thalamic intrinsic oscillation amplitude was calculated by amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF) of rs-fMRI, as well as its correlations with clinical and structural imaging indices.Compared with the healthy controls, RRMS patients showed significantly increased ALFF values in bilateral thalami (P.05, corrected). In the patient group, positive correlation was found between bilateral ALFF values and paced auditory serial addition test (left: P=.033; right: P=.016). Significant correlation was detected between the ALFF values and fractional anisotropy (FA) values in the left thalamus (r=0.550, P=.007); only tendency increased correlation was detected between the ALFF values and FA values in the right thalamus (P=.114). No correlation was observed between bilateral thalamic ALFF values and disease duration, expanded disability status scale score, brain parenchymal fraction, or total white matter lesion loads (P.05).The increased thalamic intrinsic oscillation amplitude as an ineffective reorganization was responded to microstructural damage in the RRMS patients, as well as it was associated with the slowed cognitive processing in relatively minimally disabled stage.

Objective To investigate alterations in the functional brain networks of patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) by using the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) voxelwise degree centrality (DC) method. Materials and methods Thirteen patients with POAG and thirteen healthy subjects were recruited for this study, and each participant underwent a rs-fMRI scan. The voxelwise DC method was used to assess the features of spontaneous brain activity. The differences in the mean DC across brain regions between the POAG group and the healthy control group were analyzed, and the correlations between the DC values of altered brain regions and various clinical ophthalmic parameters were analyzed in the POAG group. Results Compared with healthy controls, patients with POAG exhibited significantly decreased DC values of the left superior frontal gyrus and the left postcentral gyrus as well as significantly increased DC values of the left superior occipital gyrus. In POAG patients, the DC value of the left superior occipital gyrus was significantly positively correlated with age (r = 0.571, P = 0.042) and negatively correlated with the intraocular pressure of the right eye (r=-0.625, P = 0.022). The DC value of the left superior frontal gyrus was significantly positively correlated with the right eye average cup-to-disc ratio (r = 0.683, P = 0.010), vertical cup-to-disc ratio (r = 0.779, P = 0.002), and pattern standard deviation (r = 0.567, P = 0.043). Conclusion The results showed that altered DC values in three brain regions may reflect the underlying pathological mechanisms of POAG. Decreased DC values of the left superior occipital gyrus could be useful imaging markers for determining the extent of brain damage in POAG patients compared to healthy subjects.

Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that functional changes occur after acute sleep deprivation, which suggest detrimental effects of a lack of sleep on the intrinsic functional architecture of the brain. We aimed to identify regional resting perfusion changes in subjects with acute sleep deprivation. Thirty-three healthy subjects with habitual good sleep participated in 36 hours (2 days and 1 night) of sleep deprivation and then underwent the attention network test and pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling scanning. Regional cerebral blood flow was used to compare cerebral perfusion before and after sleep deprivation. Correlation analyses of regional perfusion changes and scores on the attention network test were performed. Compared with the baseline (n = 20) scans, the scans of subjects after sleep deprivation (n = 26) revealed a slower response time (549.99 milliseconds vs 603.36 milliseconds; t = −2.301; P = .028) and a significantly higher lapse rate (0.88% vs 22.85%; t = −2.977; P = .006). The sleep deprivation subjects showed lower cerebral blood flow (CBF) in the left parahippocampal gyrus/fusiform cortex (pHipp/Fus), right pHipp/Fus, and right prefrontal cortex (PFC) relative to the baseline subjects (Gaussian random field correction, voxel level P

Rationale:Neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease (NIID) is a rare neurodegenerative disease identified with diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) high-intensity signal in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The disappearance of the abnormal signal is extremely rare.Patient concerns:We present the

A screening survey for osteoporotic fractures in men and women in Hong Kong represents the first large-scale prospective population-based study on bone health in elderly (≥65 years) Chinese men and women. This study aims to identify the prevalence and potential risk factors of lumbar spondylolisthesis in these subjects.The lateral lumbar radiographs of 1,994 male and 1,996 female patients were analysed using the Meyerding classification.Amongst the men, 380 (19.1%) had at least one spondylolisthesis and 43 (11.3%) had slips at two or more levels; 283 had anterolisthesis, 85 had retrolisthesis, whereas 12 subjects had both anterolisthesis and retrolisthesis. Amongst the women, 499 (25.0%) had at least one spondylolisthesis and 69 (13.8%) had slips at two or more levels; 459 had anterolisthesis, 34 had retrolisthesis, whereas 6 subjects had both anterolisthesis and retrolisthesis. Advanced age, short height, higher body mass index (BMI), higher bone mineral density (BMD) and degenerative arthritis are associated with spondylolisthesis. Lower Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE) score was associated with spondylolisthesis in men; higher body weight, angina and lower grip strength were associated with spondylolisthesis in women.The male/female ratio of lumbar spondylolisthesis prevalence was 1:1.3 in elderly Chinese. Men are more likely to have retrolisthesis.• The prevalence of spondylolisthesis is 19.1% in elderly Chinese men. • The prevalence of spondylolisthesis is 25.0% in elderly Chinese women. • Men are more likely to have retrolisthesis. • Anterolisthesis is most commonly seen at the L4/L5 level. • Retrolisthesis is most commonly seen at the L3/L4 level.

Intervertebral disc degeneration is a common musculoskeletal condition. It can progress to disc herniation, spinal canal stenosis, and, in conjunction with facet joint arthrosis, degenerative spondylolisthesis. The factors initiating and influencing the progression of disc degeneration remain unclear. Nevertheless, there is a general agreement that spinal mechanical stress accelerates the progression of disc degeneration. Young men are more susceptible to disc degeneration than are young women, most likely due to increased mechanical stress and physical injury. Disc degeneration becomes apparent in men in the second decade of life, at almost a decade earlier than in women (1,2). The severity of age-matched disc degeneration is also generally greater in young and middle-aged men (1,2). In a recent MR imaging-based survey of young adults 20–22 years, lumbar disc degeneration was significantly more frequent in men (3). While young and middle-aged men are more likely to have lumbar disc degeneration than women, two recent population based studies indicated that this trend is reversed in elderly subjects, with women tending to have more severe lumbar disc degeneration than men. In a radiographic study of subjects 55 years and older, de Schepper et al (4) found that disc space narrowing (DSN) was more prevalent in women than men. Using an MR-based disc degeneration grading system, Wang et al. showed that elderly female subjects had more severe disc degeneration than elderly male subjects at all lumbar levels (5,6). It has been postulated that a decrease in estrogen level may be important with regard to accelerated disc degeneration in post-menopausal women (7). Mr Os (Hong Kong) and Ms OS (Hong Kong) represent the first large scale prospective cohort studies ever conducted on bone health in Asian men and women. Two thousand Chinese elderly men and two thousand Chinese elderly women were studied to determine the relationship between anthropometric, lifestyle, medical and other factors with bone mineral density (BMD) at the hip and spine. The purpose of this current study is four-fold: 1) to determine the prevalence of radiographic lumbar DSN in elderly Chinese men and women; 2) to confirm whether DSN is more prevalent in elderly Chinese women than men and how this changes among different age groups; 3) to investigate the relationship between DSN and BMD; and 4) to identify potential risk factors for lumbar DSN in Chinese population. Radiographic DSN is a manifestation of late stage disc degeneration.

Jian Jiang,1,* Lili Gu,2,* Dan Bao,2 Shunda Hong,1 Wei He,1 Yonming Tan,1 Xianjun Zeng,1 Honghan Gong,1 Daying Zhang,2 Fuqing Zhou1 1Department of Radiology, 2Department of Pain, The First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Objective: The aim of this study was to explore interhemispheric intrinsic connectivity in patients with postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). Methods: We obtained resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 18 right-handed PHN patients (11 males, 7 females; mean age, 59.67±8.41 years) and 18 well-matched healthy controls (11 males, 7 females; mean age, 38.50±7.51 years). Interhemispheric connectivity was examined using voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC), and seed-based functional connectivity analysis was performed. Results: Compared with the healthy controls, the patients with PHN showed abnormally decreased homotopic connectivity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex (PCUN/PCC). The decreased VMHC in the PCUN/PCC was positively correlated with the visual analog scale of PHN in the PHN patient group (p=0.651; P=0.006). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed that the areas under the curves for the two brain regions were 0.898 for the prefrontal cortex and 0.923 for the PCUN/PCC, which indicated that the VMHC could be used to discriminate PHN patients from healthy controls. A subsequent seed-based functional connectivity analysis revealed widely disrupted intrinsic connectivity between the regions that showed local homotopic connectivity deficits and the areas subserving the default-mode network. Conclusion: Our results indicated reduced interhemispheric functional connectivity in patients with PHN, which seems to be an important new avenue to investigate to better understand the nature of disconnection of the functional architecture in patients with PHN. Keywords: voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity, postherpetic neuralgia, functional magnetic resonance imaging, resting state, pain