Determination of eight kinds of metal elements in millettia speciosa champ by icp-ms / 中国药学杂志

OBJECTIVE: To establish a method for simultaneous determination of multiple metal elements in Millettia speciosa Champ. METHODS: Eight kinds of metal elements, i.e., Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Pd, Cd, As, and Se in Millettia speciosa Champ from different origins were determined by microwave digestion and ICP-MS. RESULTS: The contents of Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Pd, Cd, As, and Se in Millettia speciosa Champ from different origins were slightly different, the contents of Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn were all above 1 mg·kg-1, while the contents of Pd, Cd, As and Se were mostly less than 1 mg·kg-1. The linear correlation coefficient of each metal element was 0.999 2-1.000 0, the average recovery was 87%-110.8%, and the RSDs of the reproducibility test was less than 10%. CONCLUSION: A microwave digestion and ICP-MS method for simultaneous determination of multiple metal elements in Chinese medicine Millettia speciosa Champ is established. The method is simple, sensitive, precise and repeatable, which can be used to determine the contents of metals in Millettia speciosa Champ.

Application of functional near-infrared spectroscopy in schizophrenia / 上海交通大学学报（医学版）

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a relatively new technique that can measure the hemoglobin changes in brain tissue. Depending on the absorption for different wavelength, relative changes in the concentration of hemoglobin in brain can be measured, obtaining the hemodynamic characteristics of brain to understand the brain functional state in real-time. Compared with other neuroimaging techniques, it has some advantages and has been used in psychiatry rapidly. Schizophrenia is one of the most common mental disorders, researches on its pathogenesis have focused on collection of structural and functional alteration in brain. Existing techniques can provide only indirect evidence, while fNIRS can perform brain function monitoring in real-time. A number of studies have suggested that fNIRS signal could be used as a biomarker for schizophrenia identification and adjuvant diagnosis. This paper reviewed the research progress in the application of fNIRS in schizophrenia.

Application of functional near-infrared spectroscopy in schizophrenia / 上海交通大学学报（医学版）

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a relatively new technique that can measure the hemoglobin changes in brain tissue. Depending on the absorption for different wavelength, relative changes in the concentration of hemoglobin in brain can be measured, obtaining the hemodynamic characteristics of brain to understand the brain functional state in real-time. Compared with other neuroimaging techniques, it has some advantages and has been used in psychiatry rapidly. Schizophrenia is one of the most common mental disorders, researches on its pathogenesis have focused on collection of structural and functional alteration in brain. Existing techniques can provide only indirect evidence, while fNIRS can perform brain function monitoring in real-time. A number of studies have suggested that fNIRS signal could be used as a biomarker for schizophrenia identification and adjuvant diagnosis. This paper reviewed the research progress in the application of fNIRS in schizophrenia.

Correlation Between Brain Activation Changes and Cognitive Improvement Following Cognitive Remediation Therapy in Schizophrenia: An Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-analysis / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Several studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have indicated that cognitive remediation therapy (CRT) might improve cognitive function by changing brain activations in patients with schizophrenia. However, the results were not consistent in these changed brain areas in different studies. The present activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis was conducted to investigate whether cognitive function change was accompanied by the brain activation changes, and where the main areas most related to these changes were in schizophrenia patients after CRT. Analyses of whole-brain studies and whole-brain + region of interest (ROI) studies were compared to explore the effect of the different methodologies on the results.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A computerized systematic search was conducted to collect fMRI and PET studies on brain activation changes in schizophrenia patients from pre- to post-CRT. Nine studies using fMRI techniques were included in the meta-analysis. Ginger ALE 2.3.1 was used to perform meta-analysis across these imaging studies.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The main areas with increased brain activation were in frontal and parietal lobe, including left medial frontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, right postcentral gyrus, and inferior parietal lobule in patients after CRT, yet no decreased brain activation was found. Although similar increased activation brain areas were identified in ALE with or without ROI studies, analysis including ROI studies had a higher ALE value.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The current findings suggest that CRT might improve the cognition of schizophrenia patients by increasing activations of the frontal and parietal lobe. In addition, it might provide more evidence to confirm results by including ROI studies in ALE meta-analysis.</p>

Meta-analysis on effect of compound Danshen injection in treating neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy / 中国中药杂志

To systematically evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of compound Danshen injection in treating hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) of newborns. Computer retrievals were made in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CBM, CNKI, VIP and China info (before May 2014) and relevant literature references, and manual retrievals were made for journals and conference papers, in order to collect randomized or semi-randomized controlled trials concerning compound Danshen injection in the treatment of neonatal HIE. The quality of included references was evaluated according to literatures recommended by Cochrane Handbook. RevMan 5. 3 software was applied in the statistical treatment. Finally, a total of 13 randomized controlled trials were included, covering 1,211 patients (including 639 patients in the compound Danshen injection-treated group and 572 patients in the control group). Meta-analysis results showed that the routine treatment combined with compound Danshen injection can improve the treatment efficiency of neonatal HIE [RR = 1.28; 95% CI (1.21-1.36)], reduce the mortality rate [RR = 0.42; 95% CI (0.23-0.75)] and the incidence of long-term neurological sequelae [RR = 0.48; 95% CI (0.35-0.65)], with statistical differences. No fatal side effect was observed in all of included trials. So far, limited evidences in this study proved that the application of compound Danshen injection in the treatment of neonatal HIE can enhance the clinical efficiency. However, because of the low quality of the included trials, more well-designed and large-scale multi-center randomized controlled trials shall be made in the future.

Availability and toxicity of Fe(II) and Fe(III) in Caco-2 cells / 浙江大学学报（英文版）（B辑：生物医学和生物技术）

The objective of the present study was to compare the toxicity and availability of Fe(II) and Fe(III) to Caco-2 cells. Cellular damage was studied by measuring cell proliferation and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release. The activities of two major antioxidative enzymes [superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx)] and differentiation marker (alkaline phosphatase) were determined after the cells were exposed to different levels of iron salts. The cellular iron concentration was investigated to evaluate iron bioavailability. The results show that iron uptake of the cells treated with Fe(II) is significantly higher than that of the cells treated with Fe(III) (P<0.05). Fe(II) at a concentration >1.5 mmol/L was found to be more effective in reducing cellular viability than Fe(III). LDH release investigation suggests that Fe(II) can reduce stability of the cell membrane. The activities of SOD and GPx of the cells treated with Fe(II) were higher than those of the cells treated with Fe(III), although both of them increased with raising iron supply levels. The results indicate that both Fe(II) and Fe(III) could reduce the cellular antioxidase gene expression at high levels.