Sex-dependent alterations in extracellular vesicles linking chronic spinal cord injury to brain neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration

Traumatic spinal cord injury(SCI)is a devastating exogenous injury with long-lasting consequences and a leading cause of death and disability worldwide.Advances in assistive technology,rehabilitative interventions,and the ability to identify and intervene in secondary conditions have significantly increased the long-term survival rate of SCI patients,with some people even living well into their seventh or eighth decade.These survival changes have led neurotrauma researchers to examine how SCI interacts with brain aging.Public health and epidemiological data showed that patients with long-term SCI can have a lower life expectancy and quality of life,along with a higher risk of comorbidities and complications.

Modulation of Gut Microbiota in Pathological States

The human microbiota is an aggregate of microorganisms residing in the human body, mostly in the gastrointestinal tract （GIT）. Our gut microbiota evolves with us and plays a pivotal role in human health and disease. In recent years, the microbiota has gained increasing attention due to its impact on host metabolism, physiology, and immune system development, but also because the perturbation of the microbiota may result in a number of diseases. The gut microbiota may be linked to malignancies such as gastric cancer and colorectal cancer. It may also be linked to disorders such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease （NAFLD）; obesity and diabetes, which are characterized as ＂lifestyle diseases＂ of the industrial- ized world; coronary heart disease; and neurological disorders. Although the revolution in molecular technologies has provided us with the necessary tools to study the gut microbiota more accurately, we need to elucidate the relationships between the gut microbiota and several human pathologies more precisely, as understanding the impact that the microbiota plays in various diseases is fundamental for the development of novel therapeutic strategies. Therefore, the aim of this review is to provide the read- er with an updated overview of the importance of the gut microbiota for human health and the poten- tial to manipulate gut microbial composition for purposes such as the treatment of antibiotic-resistant Clostridium difficile （C difficile） infections. The concept of altering the gut community by microbial intervention in an effort to improve health is currently in its infancy. However, the therapeutic implications appear to be very great. Thus, the removal of harmful organisms and the enrichment of beneficial mi- crobes may protect our health, and such efforts will pave the way for the development of more rational treatment options in the future.

Functional phenotyping of microglia highlights the dark relationship between chronic traumatic brain injury and normal age-related pathology

Traumatic brain injury(TBI) is a major cause of death and disability worldwide. Age-related TBI differences demonstrate the third peak of prevalence and incidence of TBI within the elderly population. This is due to the elderly being at a higher risk of sustaining falls, which have been identified as the main cause(40–50%) of TBI.

Modification of autophagy-lysosomal pathway as a neuroprotective treatment for spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury （SCI） is one of the most common causes of long-term disability among young adults world-wide. In the United States, 12,000-20,000 new cases are reported annually and approximately half a million people currently live with SCI. Unfortunately, beyond surgery for immobilization of the spine and prolonged rehabilitation there are no effective treatments to improve functional outcomes after SCI. This is at least in part due to the complex and heterogeneous nature of injury after spinal cord trauma. The physical impact during SCI results in direct mechanical damage to some cells and tissues （primary injury）. Primary injury also sets off a cascade of widespread, progressive biochemical changes leading to further neuronal and glial cell death, neuroinflammation and glial scar formation （secondary injury） （Beattie et al., 2002）.

Blind Motion Deblurring for Online Defect Visual Inspection

Online defect visual inspection (ODVI) works while the object has to be static, otherwise the relative motion between camera and object will create motion blur in images. In order to implement ODVI in dynamic scene, it developes one blind motion deblurring method whose objective is to estimate blur kernel parameters precisely. In the proposed method, Radon transform on superpixels determinated the blur angle, and the autocorrelation function based on magnitude (AFM) of the preprocessed blurred image was utilized to identify the blur length. With the projection relationship discussed in this study, it will be unnecessary to rotate the blurred image or the axis. The proposed method is of high accuracy and robustness to noise, and it can somehow handle saturated pixels. To validate the proposed method, experiments have been carried out on synthetic images both in noise free and noisy situations. The results show that the method outperforms existing approaches. With the modified Richardson– Lucy deconvolution, it demonstrates that the proposed method is effective for ODVI in terms of subjective visual quality.

Gut microbiota-dependent phenylacetylglutamine in cardiovascular disease:current knowledge and new insights

Phenylacetylglutamine(PAGln)is an amino acid derivate that comes from the amino acid phenylalanine.There are increasing studies showing that the level of PAGln is associated with the risk of different cardiovascular diseases.In this review,we discussed the metabolic pathway of PAGln production and the quantitative measurement methods of PAGln.We summarized the epidemiological evidence to show the role of PAGln in diagnostic and prognostic value in several cardiovascular diseases,such as heart failure,coronary heart disease/atherosclerosis,and cardiac arrhythmia.The underlying mechanism of PAGln is now considered to be related to the thrombotic potential of platelets via adrenergic receptors.Besides,other possible mechanisms such as inflammatory response and oxidative stress could also be induced by PAGln.Moreover,since PAGln is produced across different organs including the intestine,liver,and kidney,the cross-talk among multiple organs focused on the function of this uremic toxic metabolite.Finally,the prognostic value of PAGln compared to the classical biomarker was discussed and we also highlighted important gaps in knowledge and areas requiring future investigation of PAGln in cardiovascular diseases.

Myocardial injury and related mortality in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 during the Omicron pandemic:new perspectives and insights

Myocardial injury is one of the most common comorbidity in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients,and has poor prognosis.However,the incidence of myocardial injury in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection has not been sufficiently investigated during the Omicron wave.We conducted a retrospective study of 2690 patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection from Tongji Hospital.The results indicated that the myocardial injury accounted for 30.8%of the total patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection and was associated with higher in-hospital mortality than those without injury before and after propensity score matching(PSM)[adjusted hazard ratio(HR),10.61;95%confidence interval(CI),7.76–14.51;P<0.001;adjusted HR,2.70;95%CI,1.86–3.93;P<0.001;respectively].Further,the levels of cytokines(IL-1β,IL-6,IL-10,and TNF-α)in patients with myocardial injury were higher than those without injury,and the higher levels of cytokines in the myocardial injury group were associated with increased mortality.Administration of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers(ACEI/ARB)could significantly reduce the mortality in patients with myocardial injury(adjusted HR,0.52;95%CI,0.38–0.71;P<0.001).Additionally,the level of angiotensin II increased in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection was even higher in myocardial injury group compared to those without injury.Collectively,the study summarized the clinical characteristic and outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients with myocardial injury during the Omicron wave in China,and validated the protective role of ACEI/ARB in improving the survival of those with myocardial injury.