Functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence for activated functional brain areas following acupoint needling in the extremities

Totally three articles focusing on functional magnetic resonance imaging features of brain function in the activated brain regions of stroke patients undergoing acupuncture on the healthy limbs and healthy controls undergoing acupuncture on the lower extremities are published in three issues. We hope that our readers find these papers useful to their research.

Decoding brain responses to pixelized images in the primary visual cortex: implications for visual cortical prostheses

Visual cortical prostheses have the potential to restore partial vision. Still limited by the low-resolution visual percepts provided by visual cortical prostheses, implant wearers can currently only ＂see＂ pixelized images, and how to obtain the specific brain responses to different pixelized images in the primary visual cortex（the implant area） is still unknown. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment on normal human participants to investigate the brain activation patterns in response to 18 different pixelized images. There were 100 voxels in the brain activation pattern that were selected from the primary visual cortex, and voxel size was 4 mm × 4 mm × 4 mm. Multi-voxel pattern analysis was used to test if these 18 different brain activation patterns were specific. We chose a Linear Support Vector Machine（LSVM） as the classifier in this study. The results showed that the classification accuracies of different brain activation patterns were significantly above chance level, which suggests that the classifier can successfully distinguish the brain activation patterns. Our results suggest that the specific brain activation patterns to different pixelized images can be obtained in the primary visual cortex using a 4 mm × 4 mm × 4 mm voxel size and a 100-voxel pattern.

Could one single dichotomous noise cause resonant activation for exit time over potential barrier?

This paper studies the mean first passage time （or exit time, or escape time） over the non-fluctuating potential harrier for a system driven only by a dichotomous noise. It finds that the dichotomous noise can make the particles escape over the potential barrier, in some circumstances; but in other circumstances, it can not. In the case that the particles escape over the potential harrier, a resonant activation phenomenon for the mean first passage time over the potential barrier is obtained.

Design and Experiment on Environment Friendly Type of Production Equipment of Organic Fertilizer by Chicken Manure

In accordance with current problems such as odor pollution,long production period,consumption of a large amount of manpower and so on existing in chicken manure fermentation ,an environment friendly type of chicken manure fermentation device is designed. The key parameters of the equipment are resonance activated tube and fermenting cellar. Resonance activated tube makes the activated water,which could improve obvi- ously the biodegradation rate of chicken manure. The aerator could provide enough oxygen to microbes,and the agitator could make oxygen evenly distributed across the chicken manure in fermenting cellar. The test shows that this equipment is high-efficiency,and only takes 7 days to make the chicken manure achieve the decomposed requirement. The organic matter content of composted chicken manure is 91.2%,C/N ratio is 18.8, MPN is 0.04, mortality of ascarid egg is 99.6% ,concentrations of NH3 and H2 S are 4.20 and 1.58 mg/m3, furthermore ,there is no offensive smell in the fermenting cellar. Therefore,the study can provide a pollution-free, high-efficiency, manpower saving fermentation equipment for organic fertilizer production by chicken manure in agriculture area.

Simulation Study of the Dendritic Effect on Direct MRI Detection of Neural Electric Event

Currently hemodynamic-based functional MRI technique is of limitation in temporal resolution. As neural activities in the brain accompany with current induced neuronal magnetic fields （NMF）, it is possible to utilize MRI to detect NMF directly thus to improve the temporal resolution. In this work, the contribution of dendrite branch to NMF is investigated by numeric simulation. The results indicate that the existence of dendrite branch may enhance the detectability of NMF by MRI directly.

Probing hydroxyl radical generation from H2O2 upon plasmon excitation of gold nanorods using electron spin resonance： Molecular oxygen-mediated activation

Gold nanostructures are among the noble metal nanomaterials being intensely studied due to their good biocompatibility, tunable localized surface plasmon resonance （SPR）, and ease of modification. These properties give gold nano- structures many potential chemical and biomedical applications. Herein, we demonstrate the critical role of oxygen activation during the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide （H202） in the presence of photoexcited gold nanorods （AuNRs） by using electron spin resonance （ESR） techniques. Upon SPR excitation, 02 is activated first, and the resulting reactive intermediates further activate H202 to produce ,OH. The reactive intermediates exhibit singlet oxygen-like （102-1ike） reactivity, indicated by 102-specific oxidation reaction, quenching behaviors, and the lack of the typical 102 ESR signal. In addition, by using the antioxidant sodium ascorbate （NaA） as an example, we show that hydroxyl radicals from H202 activation can induce much stronger NaA oxidation than that in the absence of H202. These results may have significant biomedical implications. For example, as oxidative stress levels are known to influence tumorigenesis and cancer progression, the ability to control redox status inside tumor microenvironments using noble metal nanostructures may provide new strategies for regulating the metabolism of reactive oxygen species and new approaches for cancer treatment.

Effects of methylphenidate on resting-state brain activity in normal adults: an fMRI study

Methylphenidate （MPH） is one of the most commonly used stimulants for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder （ADHD）. Although several studies have evaluated the effects of MPH on human brain activation during specific cognitive tasks using functional magnetic resonance imaging （fMRI）, few studies have focused on spontaneous brain activity. In the current study, we investigated the effect of MPH on the intra-regional synchronization of spontaneous brain activity during the resting state in 18 normal adult males. A handedness questionnaire and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale were applied before medication, and a resting-state fMRI scan was obtained 1 h after medication （20 mg MPH or placebo, order counterbalanced between participants）. We demonstrated that： （1） there were no significant differences in the performance of behavioral tasks between the MPH and placebo groups; （2） the left middle and superior temporal gyri had stronger MPH-related regional homogeneity （ReHo）; and （3） the left lingual gyrus had weaker MPH-related ReHo. Our findings showed that the ReHo in some brain areas changes with MPH compared to placebo in normal adults, even though there are no behavioral differences. This method can be applied to patients with mental illness who may be treated with MPH, and be used to compare the difference between patients taking MPH and normal participants, to help reveal the mechanism of how MPH works.