Effect of Regional Brain Activity Following Repeat Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in SCA3: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a noninvasive neuroregulatory technique used to treat neurodegenerative diseases, holds promise for spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) treatment, although its efficacy and mechanisms remain unclear. This study aims to observe the short-term impact of cerebellar rTMS on motor function in SCA3 patients and utilize resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) to assess potential therapeutic mechanisms. Twenty-two SCA3 patients were randomly assigned to receive actual rTMS (AC group, n = 11, three men and eight women; age 32-55 years) or sham rTMS (SH group, n = 11, three men and eight women; age 26-58 years). Both groups underwent cerebellar rTMS or sham rTMS daily for 15 days. The primary outcome measured was the ICARS scores and parameters for regional brain activity. Compared to baseline, ICARS scores decreased more significantly in the AC group than in the SH group after the 15-day intervention. Imaging indicators revealed increased Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuation (ALFF) values in the posterior cerebellar lobe and cerebellar tonsil following AC stimulation. This study suggests that rTMS enhances motor functions in SCA3 patients by modulating the excitability of specific brain regions and associated pathways, reinforcing the potential clinical utility of rTMS in SCA3 treatment. The Chinese Clinical Trial Registry identifier is ChiCTR1800020133.

Altered brain white matter structural motor network in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3.

OBJECTIVES: Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 is a disorder within the brain network. However, the relationship between the brain network and disease severity is still unclear. This study aims to investigate changes in the white matter (WM) structural motor network, both in preclinical and ataxic stages, and its relationship with disease severity. METHODS: For this study, 20 ataxic, 20 preclinical SCA3 patients, and 20 healthy controls were recruited and received MRI scans. Disease severity was quantified using the SARA and ICARS scores. The WM motor structural network was created using probabilistic fiber tracking and was analyzed using graph theory and network-based statistics at global, nodal, and edge levels. In addition, the correlations between network topological measures and disease duration or clinical scores were analyzed. RESULTS: Preclinical patients showed increasing assortativity of the motor network, altered subnetwork including 12 edges of 11 nodes, and 5 brain regions presenting reduced nodal strength. In ataxic patients assortativity of the motor network also increased, but global efficiency, global strength, and transitivity decreased. Ataxic patients showed a wider altered subnetwork and a higher number of reduced nodal strengths. A negative correlation between the transitivity of the motor network and SARA and ICARS scores was observed in ataxic patients. INTERPRETATION: Changes to the WM motor network in SCA3 start before ataxia onset, and WM motor network involvement increases with disease progression. Global network topological measures of the WM motor network appear to be a promising image biomarker for disease severity. This study provides new insights into the pathophysiology of disease in SCA3/MJD.

MRI-Based Grading of Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma Using a Machine Learning Classifier.

OBJECTIVE: To develop a machine learning (ML)-based classifier for discriminating between low-grade (ISUP I-II) and high-grade (ISUP III-IV) clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCCs) using MRI textures. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated a total of 99 patients (with 61 low-grade and 38 high-grade ccRCCs), who were randomly divided into a training set (n = 70) and a validation set (n = 29). Regions of interest (ROIs) of all tumors were manually drawn three times by a radiologist at the maximum lesion level of the cross-sectional CMP sequence images. The quantitative texture analysis software, MaZda, was used to extract texture features, including histograms, co-occurrence matrixes, run-length matrixes, gradient models, and autoregressive models. Reproducibility of the texture features was assessed with the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). Features were chosen based on their importance coefficients in a random forest model, while the multi-layer perceptron algorithm was used to build a classifier on the training set, which was later evaluated with the validation set. RESULTS: The ICCs of 257 texture features were equal to or higher than 0.80 (0.828-0.998. Six features, namely Kurtosis, 135dr_RLNonUni, Horzl_GLevNonU, 135dr_GLevNonU, S(4,4)Entropy, and S(0,5)SumEntrp, were chosen to develop the multi-layer perceptron classifier. A three-layer perceptron model, which has 229 nodes in the hidden layer, was trained on the training set. The accuracy of the model was 95.7% with the training set and 86.2% with the validation set. The areas under the receiver operating curves were 0.997 and 0.758 for the training and validation sets, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: A machine learning-based grading model was developed that can aid in the clinical diagnosis of clear cell renal cell carcinoma using MRI images.

[Patterns of bird nocturnal migration at Shenyang Taoxian International Airport, Northeast China]. / æ²ˆé˜³æ¡ƒä»™å›½é™ æœºåœºé¸Ÿç±»å¤œé—´è¿å¾™è§„å¾‹.

The high frequency of bird strikes at night during the migration season is a remarkable characteristic of bird strikes at airports. Understanding the nocturnal migration patterns of birds is important for improving the methods to prevent bird strikes at night. In this study, we combined the methods of mist-net capture and sound recording to examine the composition of bird species and the patterns of nocturnal migration at Taoxian Airport. We found that 56 species of birds (88.9% of the total) migrated at night and mainly migrated after midnight. There were obvious temporal dynamics and sequence in migration. The time of spring migration was more concentrated and the migration peaked in mid-May, with Coturnix japonica, Lanius cristatus, Emberiza fucata, Saxicola torquatus, Caprimulgus indicus and Phylloscopus inornatus as the dominant species. The migration pattern was more dispersed in autumn and the peak of migration was in late September to early October, and the main species were C. japonica, Turdus hortulorum, Anthus cervinus, Scolopax rusticola, Locustella lanceolata and Emberiza spodocephala. Based on the Bird Hazard Risk Assessment, there were mainly two species with high risk (C. japonica and L. cristatus) in spring migration and four species with high risk (C. japonica, Athene noctua, T. hortulorum and S. rusticola) in autumn migration. We proposed several strategies for the prevention of bird strike based on the composition of migratory birds, migration dynamics, migration rhythm and species risk level, which could serve as references for bird strike prevention at Taoxian Airport.

Protective effects of melatonin on bovine sperm characteristics and subsequent in vitro embryo development.

We aimed to investigate the effect of melatonin on bovine frozen-thawed semen and its impact on fertilization outcome. Plasma membrane integrity, mitochondrial activity, acrosome integrity, and levels of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) were measured in spermatozoa treated with different concentrations of melatonin. Melatonin-treated spermatozoa were then used for in vitro fertilization, followed by analysis of subsequent embryo development and the expression of apoptosis- and antioxidant-related genes. The results revealed that 10-5 and 10-3 M melatonin led to higher plasma membrane integrity, mitochondrial activity, and acrosome integrity, and significantly decreased intracellular ROS levels (P < 0.05). The blastocyst development rate of in vitro-produced bovine embryos originating from 10-3 M melatonin-treated spermatozoa was significantly higher, while the incidence of apoptotic nuclei in blastocysts was markedly lower than for embryos from any other group (P < 0.05). CASP3 and BAX mRNA abundance were significantly reduced whereas BCL2, XIAP, and CAT transcript abundance were significantly increased in embryos produced from spermatozoa treated with 10-3 M melatonin; GPX4 expression, however, was comparable in all treatment groups. Thus, 10-3 M melatonin can improve the quality of bovine frozen-thawed semen. These beneficial effects appear to influence preimplantation embryos, given the correlation with its anti-apoptotic and anti-oxidative properties. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 83: 993-1002, 2016 © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Electrically controlled optical Tamm states in magnetophotonic crystal based on nematic liquid crystals.

A tunable optical Tamm state is investigated in a magnetophotonic crystal with nematic liquid crystals. It is revealed that the intra-Brillouin-zone bandgaps exist and clearly depend on the applied voltages. We find that the optical Tamm state does occur at the boundary between two photonic crystals, one of which is composed of two dielectric materials and the other that consists of a nematic liquid crystal and a magnetic material. A shift of the optical Tamm state with the applied voltage, which stems from the change in the dielectric permittivity of the nematic liquid crystal, is observed. This novel scheme offers a possibility of controlling the optical Tamm state in magnetophotonic crystals induced by nematic liquid crystals.

Voltage-controlled Kerr effect in magnetophotonic crystal.

A magneto-optical tunable device based on a one-dimensional magnetophotonic crystal infiltrated with a nematic liquid crystal has been proposed. By applying a tunable electric field the voltage-induced reorientation of the director results in an alternating magneto-optical effect. The transfer matrix method was performed to verify the controllable magneto-optical properties. The present results may be useful for future application of liquid crystal-based tunable magneto-optical devices.

Syntheses of Metal Phthalocyanines and Their Photoinactivations on Cancer Cells.

This paper reported the syntheses of amphiphilic substituted metal phthalocyanines containig sulfonic acid groups and phthalimidomethyl groups (MPcSP, M=Zn or Al(OH), S=-SO(3)(-), P=phthalimidomethyl). We have selected zinc phthalocyanine (Zn-D) as the one with better cell killing potential by an in vitro cell survival assay. Over 90 % tumor cells were killed with 10 mg/L Zn-D, after they were exposed to 12 J/cm(2) red light.