Effects of electroacupuncture on rats with cognitive impairment: An iTRAQ-based proteomics analysis / 中西医结合学报

OBJECTIVE@#The study explores the effects of electroacupuncture (EA) at the governing vessel (GV) on proteomic changes in the hippocampus of rats with cognitive impairment.@*METHODS@#Healthy male rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: sham, model and EA. Cognitive impairment was induced by left middle cerebral artery occlusion in the model and EA groups. Rats in the EA group were treated with EA at Shenting (GV24) and Baihui (GV20) for 7 d. Neurological deficit was scored using the Longa scale, the learning and memory ability was detected using the Morris water maze (MWM) test, and the proteomic profiling in the hippocampus was analyzed using protein-labeling technology based on the isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ). The Western blot (WB) analysis was used to detect the proteins and validate the results of iTRAQ.@*RESULTS@#Compared with the model group, the neurological deficit score was significantly reduced, and the escape latency in the MWM test was significantly shortened, while the number of platform crossings increased in the EA group. A total of 2872 proteins were identified by iTRAQ. Differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were identified between different groups: 92 proteins were upregulated and 103 were downregulated in the model group compared with the sham group, while 142 proteins were upregulated and 126 were downregulated in the EA group compared with the model group. Most of the DEPs were involved in oxidative phosphorylation, glycolipid metabolism and synaptic transmission. Furthermore, we also verified 4 DEPs using WB technology. Although the WB results were not exactly the same as the iTRAQ results, the expression trends of the DEPs were consistent. The upregulation of heat-shock protein β1 (Hspb1) was the highest in the EA group compared to the model group.@*CONCLUSION@#EA can effect proteomic changes in the hippocampus of rats with cognitive impairment. Hspb1 may be involved in the molecular mechanism by which acupuncture improves cognitive impairment.

Research on the regulation of food therapy prescription of Traditional Chinese medicine in treating children′s stagnation based on data mining / 中国实用护理杂志

Objective:Data mining technology was used to analyze the regulation of food therapy prescriptions in treating children′s stagnation.Methods:Collect the therapy prescriptions used for regulating children's stagnation in the Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine Prescriptions, the Complete Record of Dietary Therapy Prescriptions of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Dictionary of Chinese Medicinal Diet, extract the information of prescription name, composition, etc, and use SPSS 22.0 for frequency analysis, and use Weka for correlation analysis. Results:A total of 99 dietary prescriptions for children with hysteria were included, involving a total of 62 foods, with a total use frequency of 224 times, among which the food with high use frequency were chicken gizzard, japonica rice, hawthorn, etc. The four characteristics of food were mainly concentrated in the flat, the five tastes were mainly concentrated in the sweet, the return channel was mainly concentrated in the spleen and stomach channel, and the effect was mainly concentrated in the absorption of food and tonic deficiency. The main symptoms of the therapeutic prescription for children's accumulation of stagnation were internal accumulation of milk and food and combination of spleen deficiency. The commonly used food combination for children's accumulation of stagnation of milk and food was "fructus amomi - chicken gizzard". The commonly used food combination of children with spleen deficiency and accumulation of stagnation was "lentil bean-yam-japonica rice" and "millet-yam".Conclusions:Traditional Chinese medicine diet prescription for the treatment of children's accumulation of stagnation pay attention to harmony and regulation, sweet and slow tonifying, emphasizing the adjustment of the spleen and stomach, taking into account the regulation of lung, following the "eliminating and supplementing both, according to the cause of treatment" rule, advocate syndrome differentiation of food.

Exploration and example interpretation of real-world herbal prescription classification based on similarity matching algorithm / 中国中药杂志

In observational studies, herbal prescriptions are usually studied in the form of "similar prescriptions". At present, the classification of prescriptions is mainly based on clinical experience judgment, but there are some problems in manual judgment, such as lack of unified criteria, labor consumption, and difficulty in verification. In the construction of a database of integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19), our research group tried to classify real-world herbal prescriptions using a similarity matching algorithm. The main steps include 78 target prescriptions are determined in advance; four levels of importance labeling shall be carried out for the drugs of each target prescription; the combination, format conversion, and standardization of drug names of the prescriptions to be identified in the herbal medicine database; calculate the similarity between the prescriptions to be identified and each target prescription one by one; prescription discrimination is performed based on the preset criteria; remove the name of the prescriptions with "large prescriptions cover the small". Through the similarity matching algorithm, 87.49% of the real prescriptions in the herbal medicine database of this study can be identified, which preliminarily proves that this method can complete the classification of herbal prescriptions. However, this method does not consider the influence of herbal dosage on the results, and there is no recognized standard for the weight of drug importance and criteria, so there are some limitations, which need to be further explored and improved in future research.

Wide Pulse Width Electroacupuncture Ameliorates Denervation-Induced Skeletal Muscle Atrophy in Rats via IGF-1/PI3K/Akt Pathway / 中国结合医学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To evaluate the effect of the pulse width of electroacupuncture (EA) in the treatment of denervation-induced skeletal muscle atrophy in rats and examine the role of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1)/phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt signaling pathway during EA.@*METHODS@#Sciatic nerve functional index (SFI), muscle wet weight and the cross-sectional area (CSA) of the gastrocnemius muscle were analyzed after treatment in model rats with EA of various pulse widths (0.5, 50, 100 and 200 ms). The apoptosis index (AI) and paired box (PAX)3 and PAX7 protein expression were also determined. Further, the mRNA and protein expressions of components of IGF-1/PI3K/Akt pathway and their downstream targets were determined, along with the inhibiting effect of the pathway with a PI3-specific inhibitor.@*RESULTS@#EA with a pulse width of 200 ms was found to have the best effect with regard to increasing SFI, CSA and muscle weight, decreasing AI, and increasing the expression of PAX3 and PAX7. The IGF-1/PI3K/Akt pathway was found to be activated by denervation, although the downstream forkhead box O (FoxO) pathway was not suppressed by its activation. The PI3K/Akt pathway and its downstream molecule mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) were up-regulated further by EA to promote muscle protein synthesis. Meanwhile, the expressions of downstream FoxO and F-box protein 32 (ATROGIN-1) were down-regulated to reduce protein degradation.@*CONCLUSIONS@#EA with 200-ms pulse width was found to have a more significant effect than 0.5-ms EA. The positive effects of EA disappeared after inhibition of the PI3K/Akt pathway.

Establishment and assessment of the early maternal separation combined adult chronic unpredictable mild stress depression animal model / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

Objective:To explore the establishment and assessment of the depression model of adult SD rats induced by early maternal infant separation stress combined with adult chronic unpredictable mild stress(CUMS), and to observe the behavior and synaptic protein expression of SD rats.Methods:Twenty-four male rats were randomly divided into three groups: control group (CON group), chronic unpredictable stress group (CUMS group), maternal infant separation combined with chronic unpredictable stress group (MS + CUMS group). The depression model of rats in cums group was established by CUMS, and the depression model of rats in MS + CUMS group was established by maternal infant separation + CUMS. The depression model was evaluated by body mass and appearance observation, sugar water preference experiment, open field test and forced swimming test.Synapse-associated proteins (PSD-95 and synaptophysin (Syn)) of the hippocampus were assayed using Western blot. Syn protein expression was measured by immunohistochemistry.Results:After modeling, compared with CON group, the rats in CUMS group and MS + CUMS group had significantly lower body mass((126.43±3.88) g, (91.04±3.85) g, (69.89±6.67) g; t=5.03, 8.03, both P<0.01), significantly lower sugar water preference((94.21±0.56)%, (79.30±1.13)%, (72.73±1.82)%; t=8.24, 11.87, both P<0.01) and significantly increased immobility time((3.50±0.84)s, (13.59±2.40)s, (15.70±2.97)s; t=3.16, 3.82, both P<0.01). Among them, the body mass and sugar water preference of MS + CUMS group were lower than those of CUMS group ( t=3.00, 3.63; both P<0.01). (2)The center time of the rats in MS+ CUMS group markedly reduced compared with that of CON group((21.41±4.65) s, (8.96±2.37) s; t=2.66, P<0.05). (3)In the immunohistochemistry experiment, compared with the CON group, the percentage of Syn positive area in hippocampus of rats in CUMS group and MS+ CUMS group decreased significantly ((24.42±0.76)%, (14.00±0.95)%, (10.38±1.38)%; t=6.93, 9.33, P<0.01). (4)The results of Western blot showed that compared with CON group, both the expression of PSD-95 ((1.18±0.02), (0.74±0.06), (0.52±0.05), t=6.29, 9.31; both P<0.05) and Syn ((1.12±0.08), (0.95±0.06), (0.90±0.07); t=3.10, 4.04; both P<0.05) in hippocampus of rats in CUMS group and MS+ CUMS group were significantly decreased.And compared with the CUMS group, the expression of PSD-95 in MS+ CUMS group was lower( t=0.93, P<0.05). Conclusion:The method of MS combined with CUMS can effectively induce depression like behavior and decrease the expression of synaptic plasticity related protein of hippocampus in rats.

A survey on the training needs on nursing personnel for the aged from the perspective of nursing targets and their relatives / 中国实用护理杂志

Objective To understand the training status and learning requirement of nursing personnel for the aged from the perspective of nursing targets and their relatives in the city of Nanjing.Methods The questionnaire involved six categories,80 questionnaires were sent out,57 of them were recollected.The effective recovery rate was 71.3％(57/80).All the data were input into Excel to do statistical analysis.Results The nursing personnel did not fully grasp the skills of transfusion nursing and muscle injection [45.6％(26/57) and 33.3％(19/57)] in the basic theory of basic care,knowledge and skills from the perspective of nursing targets and their relatives.The Chinese medicine nursing skills such as scrapping [needing very much 40.4％ (23/57)] and burying seeds [needing very much 40.4％ (23/57)] in the ear acupuncture point were also needed to be enhanced.A total of 75.4％ (43/57) of respondents chose online examination as the way of nursing personnel's evaluation.Conclusions Nursing personnel are in great need of on-job professional training.