Changes in sensitivity of bilateral medial vestibular nuclear neurons responding to input stimuli during vestibular compensation and the underlying ionic mechanism / 生理学报

Vestibular compensation is an important model for developing the prevention and intervention strategies of vestibular disorders, and investigating the plasticity of the adult central nervous system induced by peripheral injury. Medial vestibular nucleus (MVN) in brainstem is critical center for vestibular compensation. Its neuronal excitability and sensitivity have been implicated in normal function of vestibular system. Previous studies mainly focused on the changes in neuronal excitability of the MVN in lesional side of the rat model of vestibular compensation following the unilateral labyrinthectomy (UL). However, the plasticity of sensitivity of bilateral MVN neurons dynamically responding to input stimuli is still largely unknown. In the present study, by using qPCR, whole-cell patch clamp recording in acute brain slices and behavioral techniques, we observed that 6 h after UL, rats showed a significant deficit in spontaneous locomotion, and a decrease in excitability of type B neurons in the ipsilesional rather than contralesional MVN. By contrast, type B neurons in the contralesional rather than ipsilesional MVN exhibited an increase in response sensitivity to the ramp and step input current stimuli. One week after UL, both the neuronal excitability of the ipsilesional MVN and the neuronal sensitivity of the contralesional MVN recovered to the baseline, accompanied by a compensation of spontaneous locomotion. In addition, the data showed that the small conductance Ca2+-activated K+ (SK) channel involved in the regulation of type B MVN neuronal sensitivity, showed a selective decrease in expression in the contralesional MVN 6 h after UL, and returned to normal level 1 week later. Pharmacological blockage of SK channel in contralateral MVN to inhibit the UL-induced functional plasticity of SK channel significantly delayed the compensation of vestibular motor dysfunction. These results suggest that the changes in plasticity of the ipsilesional MVN neuronal excitability, together with changes in the contralesional MVN neuronal sensitivity, may both contribute to the development of vestibular symptoms as well as vestibular compensation, and SK channel may be an essential ionic mechanism responsible for the dynamic changes of MVN neuronal sensitivity during vestibular compensation.

Clinical Evidence and Theory of COVID-19 by Traditional Chinese Medicine / 中国实验方剂学杂志

This study aims to investigate the etiology， pathogenic properties and pathogenic characteristics of corona virus disease-2019 （COVID-19） in traditional Chinese medicine（TCM）， so as to provide ideas for clinical treatment based on syndrome differentiation. Efforts were made to retrive relevant literature concerning clinical studies， theoretical discussions and TCM diagnosis and treatment schemes issued by the state and various provinces， municipalities， autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government in relation to TCM from China Knowledge Network（CNKI） and Wanfang Database， and to analyze and summarize the etiology， pathology， theoretical viewpoints， clinical symptoms and signs， syndrome differentiation and medication rules. Currently， the common understanding of the etiology of COVID-19 in the field of TCM is the infection of "pestilential pathogen". However， there is a dispute over cold and heat or mixed understanding of cold and heat in terms of pathogenic attributes. The pathogenic factors are different from each other in dampness， toxin， dryness， fire （heat）， wind， filth， depression， etc. There are various understandings on the pathogenesis including dampness， cold， heat， toxin， stasis， phlegm， stagnation， knot， dryness， filth， deficiency， blocking， collapse and asthma， etc. The etiology and pathogenesis are often mixed up. Integration of cold and heat， dryness and dampness， and other contradictory pathogens or pathogenesis is widely seen， which lacks the logicality of theoretical systems， and does not in line with the thinking characteristics of TCM on the etiology， pathogenesis， and syndrome differentiation of exogenous diseases. The main idea of medication in treatment is to diffuse the lung， clear away heat， eliminate dampness， resolve phlegm and repel foulness with aromatics. Maxing Shigantang is used as the core prescription. Chosen warm acrid drugs are mainly the ones with the effect of fragrance， removing dampness， resolving phlegm， and invigorating spleen. They are not the ones with the effects of warming yang and dissipating cold， but the combination of cold and heat， suggesting the complexity of etiology and pathogenesis. COVID-19 is categorized as plaque in TCM， and its etiology is "pestilential pathogen". This pestilential pathogen possesses not only the basic properties of toxin and filth， but also the characteristics of dampness， heat and wind. Throughout the course of the disease， phlegm， stasis， stagnation and other secondary pathogenic factors also occur. The evolution of pathogenesis is characterized by depression， blocking， and deficiency. There are more evidences that the pestilential pathogen of COVID-19 belongs to heat property no matter in the aspects of clinical manifestation， transmission law （syndrome differentiation at different stages）， or in compatibility of medication.

Theoretical and Clinical Evidences of Dispelling Wind and Eliminating Dampness Therapy for Allergic Rhinitis / 中国实验方剂学杂志

The pathological mechanism of allergic rhinitis (AR) involves hierarchically acute and chronic reactions among antigens, immunocytes, immunoglobulins and inflammatory factors. AR, which is characterized by heterogeneity, reacts differently to the current treatment on diverse individuals. Some patients receive unsatisfying clinical outcomes after the treatment. Chinese herbal medicine has become a frequent option to treat AR because it can improve clinical symptoms with excellent safety. The description of Biqiu in ancient Chinese medical literatures is very similar to the clinical manifestation of AR. The major pathogeneses of Biqiu included infection of wind-cold pathogens, deficiency and cold in the lung, and evil depression into heat and wind. Therefore, in modern traditional Chinese medicine （TCM）, Biqiu is considered as an integration of AR, allergic sinusitis and vasomotor rhinitis. According to the pathogenesis and clinical manifestations of Biqiu (including AR), this disease belongs to wind disease in TCM. But modern TCM focuses on deficiency of internal organs and ignores wind evil in syndrome differentiation, contrary to the fact that wind medicine is always used in treating AR. This even leads to an abnormal phenomenon that clinical studies attach little importance to syndrome differentiation. In this paper, we started from the phenomenon that wind medicine is always used in TCM for AR, considering TCM literatures and the study results of modern therapy for wind diseases, and put forward the ideas as follows: AR belongs to exogenous wind disease in TCM, and wind pathogen is the major pathogen, in clinical syndrome differentiation, we should attach more importance to wind evil, and dispelling wind and eliminating dampness is the key to treatment. Meanwhile, based on the fact that most of the classical prescriptions with good effectiveness for AR originated from Treatise on Febrile Disease, mainly including the wind medicines for treating exogenous diseases, it can be inferred that the wind-dispelling and itch-arresting effects of wind medicines are helpful to alleviate or block the allergic reaction of nasal mucus and achieve the goal of relieving itching and sneezing, and the wind-dispelling and dampness-eliminating effects are helpful to alleviate the edema of nasal mucus and achieve the goal of relieving running nose and nasal obstruction. In modern researches, it is also found that classical prescriptions which take wind medicine as a principle component and wind medicine used in AR treatment have good anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic and immune function adjusting effects. This indicates that dispelling wind and eliminating dampness and the wind medicine treatment under its instruction not only correspond to TCM theory, but also have modern science evidences.

Facilitation of spinal α-motoneuron excitability by histamine and the underlying ionic mechanisms / 生理学报

Spinal α-motoneurons directly innervate skeletal muscles and function as the final common path for movement and behavior. The processes that determine the excitability of motoneurons are critical for the execution of motor behavior. In fact, it has been noted that spinal motoneurons receive various neuromodulatory inputs, especially monoaminergic one. However, the roles of histamine and hypothalamic histaminergic innervation on spinal motoneurons and the underlying ionic mechanisms are still largely unknown. In the present study, by using the method of intracellular recording on rat spinal slices, we found that activation of either H or H receptor potentiated repetitive firing behavior and increased the excitability of spinal α-motoneurons. Both of blockage of K channels and activation of Na-Ca exchangers were involved in the H receptor-mediated excitation on spinal motoneurons, whereas the hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels were responsible for the H receptor-mediated excitation. The results suggest that, through switching functional status of ion channels and exchangers coupled to histamine receptors, histamine effectively biases the excitability of the spinal α-motoneurons. In this way, the hypothalamospinal histaminergic innervation may directly modulate final motor outputs and actively regulate spinal motor reflexes and motor execution.

Histamine Excites Rat GABAergic Ventral Pallidum Neurons via Co-activation of H1 and H2 Receptors / 神经科学通报·英文版

The ventral pallidum (VP) is a crucial component of the limbic loop of the basal ganglia and participates in the regulation of reward, motivation, and emotion. Although the VP receives afferent inputs from the central histaminergic system, little is known about the effect of histamine on the VP and the underlying receptor mechanism. Here, we showed that histamine, a hypothalamic-derived neuromodulator, directly depolarized and excited the GABAergic VP neurons which comprise a major cell type in the VP and are responsible for encoding cues of incentive salience and reward hedonics. Both postsynaptic histamine H1 and H2 receptors were found to be expressed in the GABAergic VP neurons and co-mediate the excitatory effect of histamine. These results suggested that the central histaminergic system may actively participate in VP-mediated motivational and emotional behaviors via direct modulation of the GABAergic VP neurons. Our findings also have implications for the role of histamine and the central histaminergic system in psychiatric disorders.

Influence of plant growth regulater on yield and quality of Salvia miltiorrhiza / 中国中药杂志

The study is aimed to investigate the effect of plant growth regulators on yield and quality of the Salvia miltiorrhiza. The plant growth regulators was spraying on Salvia plants in July or August in field experiment, then the yield, ingredient content and the antioxidant activity were determined. The results showed that plant growth regulator 'Zhuanggenling' could increase the yield of Salvia with root-planting by 38.45%. Plant growth regulator 'Duoxiaozuo' could increase the yield of Salvia with seedling planting by 14.19%. Both plant growth regulator significantly reduced the antioxidant activity of Salvia in vitro, but they had no significant effect on active ingredient contents.

Arthroscopic single-bundle anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with six-strand hamstring tendon and patellar tendon allograft / 中华外科杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To compare the outcome of arthroscopic single-bundle anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction with six-strand hamstring tendon and patellar tendon allograft.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>From October 2006 to December 2009, 108 patients with arthroscopic single-bundle ACL reconstruction were retrospectively reviewed, with 58 patients with six-strand hamstring tendon (Group H), and 50 patients with patellar tendon allograft (Group P). Patients were available for clinical evaluation with KT-1000 arthrometer measurements, Lachman and pivot-shift test, and knee function with the International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC), Lysholm scores.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>All the patients were followed up at an average of 28.6 months (range 12 - 38 months). The average side-to-side difference was lesser for group H (1.2 ± 1.2) mm than group P (1.8 ± 1.5) mm (P < 0.05). On the pivot-shift test, 55 (94.8%) patients were negative and 3 (5.2%) were positive in group H, whereas 41 (82.0%) were negative and 9 (18.0%) were positive in group P, with significant difference between two groups (P < 0.05). All knee function scores were improved postoperatively, without statistically significant difference between the two groups (P > 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Arthroscopic single-bundle ACL reconstruction with six-strand hamstring tendon will achieve better knee stability than patellar tendon allograft.</p>

Relationship between genetic polymorphism of ERCC1 and susceptibility to liver cancer / 中华流行病学杂志

Objective To investigate the association between genetic polymorphisms of ERCCl-C8092A and susceptibility to liver cancer, as well as the gene-environmental interaction on the etiology of liver cancer in Fuzhou. Methods A case-control study was conducted to collect the information on environmental exposure while genetic polymorphism of ERCC1 was analyzed by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. General relative risk regression models were further applied to fit the interaction between genetic polymorphisms of ERCC1-C8092A and the environmental factors of liver cancer. Results ERCC1-C8092A variant genotypes were associated with significant increasing risk of liver cancer adjusted odds ratio (OR= 3.789,95%CI:2.792-5.142 ), compared to the wild-type homozygote. Data from the analysis of interaction showed that genetic polymorphism of ERCC1-8092A appeared superadditive interaction with drinking pond-ditch or with hepatitis B, and super-multiplicative interaction with eating moldy food. Conclusion The point mutation in ERCC1-8092A was possibly susceptible to liver cancer, and related synergistically with other risk factors in hepatocelluar carcinogenesis in Fuzhou.

Therapeutic effect of deep acupuncture at local acupoints on trigeminal neuralgia / 中国针灸

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To search for an effective method for increasing therapeutic effect on trigeminal neuralgia.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Ninety cases of primary trigeminal neuralgia were randomly divided into a deep needling group and a routine needling group, 45 cases in each group. The routine needling group were treated by shallow acupuncture at local acupoints and distal acupoints along the Hand and Foot-Yangming Channels, and the deep needling group were treated by acupuncture at the above acupoints and deeply needling at the local acupoints to nerve stem for 3 courses.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>In the deep needling group 12 cases were clinically cured, 24 cases were markedly effective, 7 cases improved and 2 cases were ineffective, with a total effective rate of 95.6%; and in the routine needling group, the corresponding figures were 7, 15, 12, 11, 75.6%. The therapeutic effect in the deep needling group was better than that in the routine needling group (P<0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Deeply needling local acupoints plus acupuncture at distal acupoints along the Hand and Foot-Yangming Channels can increase significantly the therapeutic effect on trigeminal neuralgia.</p>