Combining electroacupuncture and transcranial direct current stimulation as an adjuvant therapy enhances spontaneous conversation and naming in subacute vascular aphasia: A retrospective analysis / 中西医结合学报

OBJECTIVE@#Emerging evidence shows the effectiveness of speech and language therapy (SLT); however, precise therapeutic parameters remain unclear. Evidence for the use of adjunctive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to treat post-stroke aphasia (PSA) is promising; however, the utility of combining tDCS and electroacupuncture (EA) has not yet been analyzed. This study assessed the therapeutic consequences of EA and tDCS coupled with SLT in subacute PSA patients who were also undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).@*METHODS@#A retrospective analysis was conducted on subacute (< 6 months) PSA patients who were divided into three groups: patients who received EA plus tDCS (acupuncture group), patients who underwent tDCS (tDCS group), and patients who experienced conventional therapy (HBOT + SLT). All subjects underwent 21 days of treatment and also received conventional treatment. The aphasia battery of Chinese (ABC) was used to score pre- and post-intervention status.@*RESULTS@#The analysis comprised 238 patients. Cerebral infarction was the most frequent stroke type (137 [57.6%]), while motor (66 [27.7%]) and global aphasia (60 [25.2%]) were the most common types of aphasia. After 21 days of intervention, the ABC scores of all patients were improved. The acupuncture group had the highest ABC scores, but only repetition, naming, and spontaneous speech were statistically improved (P < 0.01). Post-hoc tests revealed significant improvement in word retrieval in the acupuncture and tDCS groups (P < 0.01, P = 0.037), while the acupuncture group had additional significant improvement in spontaneous conversation (P < 0.01).@*CONCLUSION@#Combining acupuncture and tDCS as an adjuvant therapy for subacute PSA led to significant spontaneous speech and word retrieval improvements. Future prospective, multi-ethnic, multi-center trials are warranted.

Strategies of the study on herb genome program / 药学学报

Herb Genome Program (HerbGP) includes a series of projects on whole genome sequencing (WGS) and post-genomics research of medicinal plants with unique secondary metabolism pathways or/and those of great medical and pharmaceutical importance. In this paper, we systematically discussed the strategy of HerbGP, from species selection, whole-genome sequencing, assembly and bioinformatics analysis, to postgenomics research. HerbGP will push study on Chinese traditional medicines into the front field of life science, by selecting a series of plants with unique secondary metabolism pathways as models and introducing "omics" methods into the research of these medicinal plants. HerbGP will provide great opportunities for China to be the leader in the basic research field of traditional Chinese medicine. HerbGP shall also have significant impacts on the R&D of natural medicines and the development of medicinal farming by analysis of secondary metabolic pathways and selection of cultivars with good agricultural traits.