Multi-scale analysis of acupuncture mechanisms for motor and sensory cortex activity based on SEEG data.

Acupuncture, a traditional Chinese therapy, is gaining attention for its impact on the brain. While existing electroencephalogram and functional magnetic resonance image research has made significant contributions, this paper utilizes stereo-electroencephalography data for a comprehensive exploration of neurophysiological effects. Employing a multi-scale approach, channel-level analysis reveals notable $\delta $-band activity changes during acupuncture. At the brain region level, acupuncture modulated connectivity between the paracentral lobule and the precentral gyrus. Whole-brain analysis indicates acupuncture's influence on network organization, and enhancing $E_{glob}$ and increased interaction between the motor and sensory cortex. Brain functional reorganization is an important basis for functional recovery or compensation after central nervous system injury. The use of acupuncture to stimulate peripheral nerve trunks, muscle motor points, acupoints, etc., in clinical practice may contribute to the reorganization of brain function. This multi-scale perspective provides diverse insights into acupuncture's effects. Remarkably, this paper pioneers the introduction of stereo-electroencephalography data, advancing our understanding of acupuncture's mechanisms and potential therapeutic benefits in clinical settings.

Intracranial neural representation of phenomenal and access consciousness in the human brain.

After more than 30 years of extensive investigation, impressive progress has been made in identifying the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). However, the functional role of spatiotemporally distinct consciousness-related neural activity in conscious perception is debated. An influential framework proposed that consciousness-related neural activities could be dissociated into two distinct processes: phenomenal and access consciousness. However, though hotly debated, its authenticity has not been examined in a single paradigm with more informative intracranial recordings. In the present study, we employed a visual awareness task and recorded the local field potential (LFP) of patients with electrodes implanted in cortical and subcortical regions. Overall, we found that the latency of visual awareness-related activity exhibited a bimodal distribution, and the recording sites with short and long latencies were largely separated in location, except in the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC). The mixture of short and long latencies in the lPFC indicates that it plays a critical role in linking phenomenal and access consciousness. However, the division between the two is not as simple as the central sulcus, as proposed previously. Moreover, in 4 patients with electrodes implanted in the bilateral prefrontal cortex, early awareness-related activity was confined to the contralateral side, while late awareness-related activity appeared on both sides. Finally, Granger causality analysis showed that awareness-related information flowed from the early sites to the late sites. These results provide the first LFP evidence of neural correlates of phenomenal and access consciousness, which sheds light on the spatiotemporal dynamics of NCC in the human brain.

Comparison of children and adults in deep brain stimulation for Tourette Syndrome: a large-scale multicenter study of 102 cases with long-term follow-up.

BACKGROUND: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a promising therapy for refractory Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS). However, its long-term efficacy, safety, and recommended surgical age remain controversial, requiring evidence to compare different age categories. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study recruited 102 GTS patients who underwent DBS between October 2006 and April 2022 at two national centers. Patients were divided into two age categories: children (aged < 18 years; n = 34) and adults (aged ≥ 18 years; n = 68). The longitudinal outcomes as tic symptoms were assessed by the YGTSS, and the YBOCS, BDI, and GTS-QOL were evaluated for symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, and quality of life, respectively. RESULTS: Overall, these included patients who finished a median 60-month follow-up, with no significant difference between children and adults (p = 0.44). Overall, the YGTSS total score showed significant postoperative improvements and further improved with time (improved 45.2%, 51.6%, 55.5%, 55.6%, 57.8%, 61.4% after 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, and ≥ 60 months of follow-up compared to baseline, respectively) in all included patients (all p < 0.05). A significantly higher improvement was revealed in children than adults at ≥ 60 months of follow-up in the YGTSS scores (70.1% vs 55.9%, p = 0.043), and the time to achieve 60% improvement was significantly shorter in the children group (median 6 months vs 12 months, p = 0.013). At the last follow-up, the mean improvements were 45.4%, 48.9%, and 55.9% and 40.3%, 45.4%, and 47.9% in YBOCS, BDI, and GTS-QOL scores for children and adults, respectively, which all significantly improved compared to baseline (all p < 0.05) but without significant differences between these two groups (all p > 0.05), and the children group received significantly higher improvement in GTS-QOL scores than adults (55.9% vs. 47.9%, p = 0.049). CONCLUSIONS: DBS showed acceptable long-term efficacy and safety for both children and adults with GTS. Surgeries performed for patients younger than 18 years seemed to show acceptable long-term efficacy and safety and were not associated with increased risks of loss of benefit compared to patients older than 18 at the time of surgery. However, surgeries for children should also be performed cautiously to ensure their refractoriness and safety.

Endoscopic cadaveric analysis of the origin of the ophthalmic artery.

PURPOSE: The ophthalmic artery is often involved in suprasellar and parasellar surgeries, but the anatomical structure where the ophthalmic artery originates has not been fully clarified from the perspective of an endoscopic endonasal approach (EEA). METHODS: A total of 10 fresh cadaveric heads (20 sides) were dissected through an EEA, and the origin of the bilateral ophthalmic arteries and their adjacent structures were observed from a ventral view. The origin of the ophthalmic artery in 50 healthy people was retrospectively studied on computed tomography angiography imaging. RESULTS: The ophthalmic artery originated from the intradural segment (75%), paraclinoid segment (15%), or parasellar segment (10%) of the internal carotid artery. The cross-sectional view of the internal carotid artery through the EEA showed that the ophthalmic artery originated from the middle 1/3 (75%) or medial 1/3 (25%) of the upper surface of the internal carotid artery. On computed tomography angiography, the ophthalmic artery originated from the middle 1/3 (77%) and medial 1/3 (22%) of the upper surface of the internal carotid artery. All ophthalmic arteries were near the level of the distal dural ring (DDR) of the internal carotid artery, that is, within 3 mm above or below the DDR. CONCLUSIONS: The ophthalmic artery usually originates in the middle 1/3 of the upper surface of the intradural segment of the internal carotid artery within 3 mm of the DDR. The ophthalmic artery can be protected to the utmost extent after its origin is identified through an EEA.

Effect of Early Normobaric Hyperoxia on Blast-Induced Traumatic Brain Injury in Rats.

Blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) is a leading cause of disability and mortality in soldiers during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although substantial clinical and animal studies have investigated the pathophysiology and treatments of bTBI, few effective therapies have been found, especially for the early rescue in the battlefield. The aim of this study is to evaluate neuroprotective effects of early normobaric hyperoxia (NBO) on bTBI. We established a rat model of bTBI caused by explosion in the cabin. It exhibited typical changes of mild bTBI, like impaired neurological function, brain edema, minor intracranial hemorrhage and neuron necrosis. The rats were divided into 4 groups (n = 12): Sham, Vehicle, hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) and NBO. Neurological function of the rats was assessed by the Neurological Severity Scores (NSS) at 24 h and 72 h after explosion. Serum interleukin-6 (IL-6), neuron specific enolase (NSE) and tau protein were measured at 24 h and 72 h after explosion. Brain water content was measured and Aquaporin-4 (AQP4) immunostaining was performed. Neuronal apoptosis was analyzed by TUNEL staining. NBO demonstrated curative effects on protecting the neurological function. Serum levels of NSE and tau protein were reduced at 24 h and 72 h after explosion. But the levels of IL-6 were not reduced significantly at both time points. Cerebral edema was alleviated. Simultaneously, AQP4 immunostaining of the hippocampus showed remarkably decreased expression after treatment. The number of apoptotic cells in hippocampus was also decreased. Compared with HBO, NBO is simple and convenient, and can be administered in remote areas. It may be a promising therapy for early rescue of bTBI in the battlefield.

Correction to: Detecting focal cortical dysplasia lesions from FLAIR-negative images based on cortical thickness.

It was highlighted that the original article [1] contained an error in the Quantitative evaluation of Methods. A bracket was misplaced in the formula. This Correction article shows the incorrect and correct formula.

Detecting focal cortical dysplasia lesions from FLAIR-negative images based on cortical thickness.

BACKGROUND: Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) is a neuronal migration disorder and is a major cause of drug-resistant epilepsy. However, many focal abnormalities remain undetected during routine visual inspection, and many patients with histologically confirmed FCD have normal fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR-negative) images. The aim of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the changes in cortical thickness with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of patients to identify FCD lesions from FLAIR-negative images. METHODS: We first used the three-dimensional (3D) Laplace method to calculate the cortical thickness for individuals and obtained the cortical thickness mean image and cortical thickness standard deviation (SD) image based on all 32 healthy controls. Then, a cortical thickness extension map was computed by subtracting the cortical thickness mean image from the cortical thickness image of each patient and dividing the result by the cortical thickness SD image. Finally, clusters of voxels larger than three were defined as the FCD lesion area from the cortical thickness extension map. RESULTS: The results showed that three of the four lesions that occurred in non-temporal areas were detected in three patients, but the detection failed in three patients with lesions that occurred in the temporal area. The quantitative analysis of the detected lesions in voxel-wise on images revealed the following: specificity (99.78%), accuracy (99.76%), recall (67.45%), precision (20.42%), Dice coefficient (30.01%), Youden index (67.23%) and area under the curve (AUC) (83.62%). CONCLUSION: Our studies demonstrate an effective method to localize lesions in non-temporal lobe regions. This novel method automatically detected FCD lesions using only FLAIR-negative images from patients and was based only on cortical thickness feature. The method is noninvasive and more effective than a visual analysis for helping doctors make a diagnosis.

Automatic localization and segmentation of focal cortical dysplasia in FLAIR-negative patients using a convolutional neural network.

PURPOSE: Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) is a common cause of epilepsy; the only treatment is surgery. Therefore, detecting FCD using noninvasive imaging technology can help doctors determine whether surgical intervention is required. Since FCD lesions are small and not obvious, diagnosing FCD through visual evaluations of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans is difficult. The purpose of this study is to detect and segment histologically confirmed FCD lesions in images of normal fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR)-negative lesions using convolutional neural network (CNN) technology. METHODS: The technique involves training a six-layer CNN named Net-Pos, which consists of two convolutional layers (CLs); two pooling layers (PLs); and two fully connected (FC) layers, including 60 943 learning parameters. We employed activation maximization (AM) to optimize a series of pattern image blocks (PIBs) that were most similar to a lesion image block by using the trained Net-Pos. We developed an AM and convolutional localization (AMCL) algorithm that employs the mean PIBs combined with convolution to locate and segment FCD lesions in FLAIR-negative patients. Five evaluation indices, namely, recall, specificity, accuracy, precision, and the Dice coefficient, were applied to evaluate the localization and segmentation performance of the algorithm. RESULTS: The PIBs most similar to an FCD lesion image block were identified by the trained Net-Pos as image blocks with brighter central areas and darker surrounding image blocks. The technique was evaluated using 18 FLAIR-negative lesion images from 12 patients. The subject-wise recall of the AMCL algorithm was 83.33% (15/18). The Dice coefficient for the segmentation performance was 52.68. CONCLUSION: We developed a novel algorithm referred to as the AMCL algorithm with mean PIBs to effectively and automatically detect and segment FLAIR-negative FCD lesions. This work is the first study to apply a CNN-based model to detect and segment FCD lesions in images of FLAIR-negative lesions.

Retrospective Analysis of 28 Cases Confirmed for Primary Angiitis of the Central Nervous System by Biopsy.

OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to summarize the clinical characteristics, therapeutic effects, and long-term prognosis of cases confirmed with primary angiitis of the central nervous system (PACNS) by biopsy, analyze the risk factors, and provide clinical guidance for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease. METHODS: Retrospective analysis was performed on 28 cases of PACNS confirmed by biopsy, and the age, gender, pathological results, course of the disease, imaging manifestations, treatment, and prognosis of the patients were analyzed and summarized. RESULTS: The cohort (age 16-60 years) comprised of 16 males. The average time from the visit to diagnosis was 6 months. The first symptom was chronic headache in 18 patients. The pathological results were accompanied by demyelination in 10 cases and glial hyperplasia in 6 cases. A total of 27 patients received treatments including glucocorticoid+cyclophosphamide; of these, 3 cases of craniotomy were improved. Among the 28 patients, 15 patients improved after the treatment, 12 patients had no significant improvement, and 1 patient was deceased. Patients with a long course of the disease before diagnosis, a Karnofsky performance status (KPS) score <60 at the time of diagnosis, a behavioral, cognitive abnormality before treatment, and a short-term relapse (0.3-1 month) have a poor outcome. CONCLUSIONS: PACNS patients are prone to misdiagnosis and mistreatment, with unknown etiology and poor prognosis due to delayed treatment. Therefore, early biopsy, pathological diagnosis, and timely treatment with glucocorticoid shock are recommended, and patients with obvious mass effect should be treated by surgical resection.

[Comparison of tumefactive demyelinating lesions and glioma by clinical presentations and neuroimaging studies].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the clinical and imaging features of tumefactive demyelinating lesions (TDL) and glioma. METHODS: The brain computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) features of 60 pathologically confirmed TDL patients and 65 glioma ones, hospitalized at Navy General Hospital from 2005 to 2013, were reviewed and analyzed. RESULTS: The mean onset age of glioma was significantly older than that of TDL. The onset symptom was headache for TDL and headache and epilepsy for glioma. The features of lesions on brain CT scan: no hyperdensity in TDL group and 39 with hyperdense lesions in glioma group. Tissue necrosis was more frequently found in lesions of glioma than TDL, especially for higher grade glioma. And increased ß and γ-Glx on (1)H-MRS was most frequently found in TDL. CONCLUSION: The onset age of glioma is older than TDL. The headache is the top onset symptoms of TDL and epiplesy occurs frequently only in glioma. The hyperdense lesions on CT scan support more the diagnosis of glioma. The lesions with tissue necrosis may be a diagnostic clue for high grade glioma. On (1)H-MRS, increased ß and γ-Glx are most frequently found in TDL. Dynamic observation of imaging changes may be more important for facilitating the diagnosis of TDL, especially in conjunctions with imaging characteristics and clinical features.

Genetic Analysis of the ts-Lethal Mutant Δpa0665/pTS-pa0665 Reveals Its Role in Cell Morphology and Oxidative Phosphorylation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Pa0665 in Pseudomonas aeruginosa shares homologous sequences with that of the essential A-type iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster insertion protein ErpA in Escherichia coli. However, its essentiality in P. aeruginosa and its complementation with E. coli erpA has not been experimentally examined. To fulfill this task, we constructed plasmid-based ts-mutant Δpa0665/pTS-pa0665 using a three-step protocol. The mutant displayed growth defects at 42 °C, which were complemented by expressing ec.erpA. Microscopic observations indicated a petite cell phenotype for Δpa0665/pTS-pa0665 at 42 °C, correlated with the downregulation of the oprG gene. RNA sequencing revealed significant transcriptional changes in genes associated with the oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) system, aligning with reduced ATP levels in Δpa0665/pTS-pa0665 under 42 °C. Additionally, the ts-mutant showed heightened sensitivity to H2O2 at 42 °C. Overall, our study demonstrates the essential role of pa0665 for OXPHOS function and is complemented by ec.erpA. We propose that the plasmid-based ts-allele is useful for genetic analysis of essential genes of interest in P. aeruginosa.

The involvement of the human prefrontal cortex in the emergence of visual awareness.

Exploring the neural mechanisms of awareness is a fundamental task of cognitive neuroscience. There is an ongoing dispute regarding the role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the emergence of awareness, which is partially raised by the confound between report- and awareness-related activity. To address this problem, we designed a visual awareness task that can minimize report-related motor confounding. Our results show that saccadic latency is significantly shorter in the aware trials than in the unaware trials. Local field potential (LFP) data from six patients consistently show early (200-300ms) awareness-related activity in the PFC, including event-related potential and high-gamma activity. Moreover, the awareness state can be reliably decoded by the neural activity in the PFC since the early stage, and the neural pattern is dynamically changed rather than being stable during the representation of awareness. Furthermore, the enhancement of dynamic functional connectivity, through the phase modulation at low frequency, between the PFC and other brain regions in the early stage of the awareness trials may explain the mechanism of conscious access. These results indicate that the PFC is critically involved in the emergence of awareness.

A pilot study on a patient with refractory headache: Personalized deep brain stimulation through stereoelectroencephalography.

The integration of stereoelectroencephalography with therapeutic deep brain stimulation (DBS) holds immense promise as a viable approach for precise treatment of refractory disorders, yet it has not been explored in the domain of headache or pain management. Here, we implanted 14 electrodes in a patient with refractory migraine and integrated clinical assessment and electrophysiological data to investigate personalized targets for refractory headache treatment. Using statistical analyses and cross-validated machine-learning models, we identified high-frequency oscillations in the right nucleus accumbens as a critical headache-related biomarker. Through a systematic bipolar stimulation approach and blinded sham-controlled survey, combined with real-time electrophysiological data, we successfully identified the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex as the optimal target for the best potential treatment. In this pilot study, the concept of the herein-proposed data-driven approach to optimizing precise and personalized treatment strategies for DBS may create a new frontier in the field of refractory headache and even pain disorders.

Bilateral stereotactic radiofrequency amygdalohippocampectomy for a patient with bilateral temporal lobe epilepsy.

To search for a method for treatment of bilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (BTLE), we report one patient with BTLE experienced bilateral stereotactic radiofrequency amygdalohippocampectomy (SAHE). Neuropsychological examinations were performed before and 5 days, and 6, 18, and 48 months after operation. No seizure occurred in the follow-up time, and no long-term memory and intelligence deficits were found except for a transient decline of the scores immediately after operation. Because severe damage of memory could be caused by bilateral resection surgery, bilateral SAHE should be considered as a possible approach for the treatment of BTLE. However, further studies with accumulation of cases are needed, especially in the detailed assessment of neuropsychological function.

[Mixed craniopharyngioma: long-term results after gamma knife combined with stereotactic brachytherapy].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the long-term results of combination treatment with Gamma Knife radiosurgery and stereotactic intracavitary brachytherapy for mixed cystic and solid craniopharyngiomas. METHODS: Sixty-seven consecutive patients with mixed cystic and solid craniopharyngioma treated by Gamma Knife radiosurgery combined with stereotactic brachytherapy from October 1996 to December 2005 were selected for retrospective analysis. The inclusion criterion was the patients who survived for at least 5 years after combined treatment. There were 39 male and 28 female patients and the mean age was 31.5 years (ranged from 3 to 70 years). The clinical evaluations including neurological, neuro-ophthalmological, and neuro-endocrinological examinations, assessment of comprehensive quality of life and neuroimaging examinations were performed periodically. The actuarial survival rates and the mean survival time were calculated by using Kaplan-Meier product limit method. The rates were compared using the χ(2) test. RESULTS: Follow-up period varied from 60 to 168 months, with an average of 114 months. The tumor response rate gained from combination treatment with Gamma Knife radiosurgery and stereotactic intracavitary brachytherapy for predominantly solid and cystic craniopharyngiomas were 10/12 and 90.9% respectively, and 89.6% in all. Mean survival after combination treatment was (110 ± 9) months. The mean survival of patients with predominantly solid and cystic craniopharyngioma were (97 ± 12) months and (120 ± 14) months and the actuarial 10-year survival rates were 7/12 and 69.1%. There was no statistics difference in tumor response rate and 10-year survival rate between 2 groups of patients with predominantly solid and cystic craniopharyngioma. The actuarial 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9- and 10-year survival rates were 90.5%, 85.7%, 83.3%, 76.4%, 69.4% and 60.0% respectively. The decreased visual acuity had improved in 68.3% at 6 months postoperatively and in 70.0% in long term results. Comprehensive quality of life in long term follow-up of 67 patients was excellent in 28 cases(41.8%), good in 19 cases(28.4%), fair in 17 cases(25.4%) and poor in 3 cases(4.5%), respectively. The side effects that occurred 6 to 12 months after treatment were worsening of visual acuity (4 patients), dysfunction of hypothalam (4 patients) and third nerve palsy was found in 1 patents 5 years after treatment. The rate of complications was 13.4%. CONCLUSION: Combination treatment with Gamma Knife radiosurgery and stereotactic intracavitary brachytherapy is highly effective and safety in the treatment of mixed cystic and solid craniopharyngiomas.

Initial frontal lobe involvement in adult cerebral X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy.

OBJECTIVE: Adult cerebral X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ACALD) with initial frontal lobe involvement is a rare genetic disease that is easily misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed. We sought to improve the early identification of such diseases. METHODS: We present three cases of adult X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) with initial frontal lobe involvement and identify an additional 13 cases from the database. The clinical and imaging characteristics of the overall sixteen cases were analyzed. RESULTS: The average age of onset was 37 years, with 15 male and 1 female patient. A total of 12 patients (75%) developed a decline in cerebral executive and cognitive functions. Brain trauma is the possible trigger for the onset of ALD in five patients (31%). An elevated level of very-long-chain fatty acids (VLCFA) was observed in all 15 patients on whom a plasma VLCFA was performed.10 patients with gene tests showed different mutation sites in the ABCD1 gene. Brain MRI of six patients (46%) were characterized by frontal lobe "butterfly wings"-like lesions with peripheral rim enhancement. Four patients underwent brain biopsies (patients 1, 3, 15, and 13), and five patients (31%) were initially misdiagnosed (patients 1, 2, 3, 11, and 15). Nine of the patients with follow-up records experienced poor prognoses, and five of them, unfortunately, died (56%). CONCLUSION: ACALD patients with anterior patterns tend to be misdiagnosed. The early clinical manifestation is a decline in cerebral executive and cognitive function. Brain trauma may be a trigger for this pattern. Brain MRI findings are characterized by frontal lobe "butterfly wing"-like lesions with peripheral rim enhancement. The determination of the VLCFA levels and the genetic detection of the causative mutations are required to confirm the diagnosis.

Photoacoustic digital brain and deep-learning-assisted image reconstruction.

Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is a newly developed medical imaging modality, which combines the advantages of pure optical imaging and ultrasound imaging, owning both high optical contrast and deep penetration depth. Very recently, PAT is studied in human brain imaging. Nevertheless, while ultrasound waves are passing through the human skull tissues, the strong acoustic attenuation and aberration will happen, which causes photoacoustic signals' distortion. In this work, we use 180 T1 weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) human brain volumes along with the corresponding magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) brain volumes, and segment them to generate the 2D human brain numerical phantoms for PAT. The numerical phantoms contain six kinds of tissues, which are scalp, skull, white matter, gray matter, blood vessel and cerebrospinal fluid. For every numerical phantom, Monte-Carlo based optical simulation is deployed to obtain the photoacoustic initial pressure based on optical properties of human brain. Then, two different k-wave models are used for the skull-involved acoustic simulation, which are fluid media model and viscoelastic media model. The former one only considers longitudinal wave propagation, and the latter model takes shear wave into consideration. Then, the PA sinograms with skull-induced aberration is taken as the input of U-net, and the skull-stripped ones are regarded as the supervision of U-net to train the network. Experimental result shows that the skull's acoustic aberration can be effectively alleviated after U-net correction, achieving conspicuous improvement in quality of PAT human brain images reconstructed from the corrected PA signals, which can clearly show the cerebral artery distribution inside the human skull.

A Potential Prognostic Biomarker for Glioma: Aldo-Keto Reductase Family 1 Member B1.

Aldo-keto reductase family 1 member B1 (AKR1B1) plays a vital role in tumor development and is involved in the tumor immune process. However, its role in glioma cell is poorly studied. This study's aim was to assess the role of AKR1B1 in glioma through bioinformatics analysis. The AKR1B1 expression data and corresponding clinical data of glioma were collected from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The R packages were used for data integration, extraction, analysis, and visualization. According to the median value of the risk score, all patients were divided into high-risk and low-risk groups to draw the Kaplan-Meier (KM) survival curves and to explore the level of immune infiltration. The expression of AKR1B1 was significantly elevated in glioma tissues compared to normal tissues (P < 0.001). The high expression of AKR1B1 was significantly associated with WHO grade (P < 0.001), IDH status (P < 0.001), 1p/19q codeletion (P < 0.001), primary therapy outcome (P = 0.004), and age (P < 0.05). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis found that OS (HR = 3.75, P < 0.001), DSS (HR = 3.85, P < 0.001), and PFI (HR = 2.76, P < 0.001) were lower in patients with glioma with high AKR1B1 expression than in the group with low AKR1B1 expression. Based on GESA, six pathways (including interferon gamma signaling, signaling by interleukins, cell cycle checkpoints, cytokine receptor interaction, cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), and cell surface interactions) at the vascular wall were identified as significantly different between the two groups. Moreover, highly expressed AKR1B1 was associated with immune cell infiltration. AKR1B1 plays a key role in glioma progression and prognosis and, therefore, serves as a potential biomarker for prediction of patients' survival.

LncRNA ADAMTS9-AS1 knockdown suppresses cell proliferation and migration in glioma through downregulating Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway.

The long non-coding RNA antisense 1 ADAMTS9-AS1 has been reported to serve as an oncogene or tumor suppressor in several tumors, including colorectal cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. Nevertheless, the clinical significance and biological behaviors of ADAMTS9-AS1 in glioma still remain unclear. Therefore, the goal of this study was to evaluate the functional roles and potential mechanisms of ADAMTS9-AS1 in glioma cells. Using quantitative real-time PCR analysis, we found that ADAMTS9-AS1 was upregulated in glioma tissues and cells in comparison to corresponding controls. ADAMTS9-AS1 expression level was correlated to tumor size (p=0.005) and WHO grade (p=0.002). Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox multivariate analysis showed that ADAMTS9-AS1 could serve as an independent prognostic factor affecting the overall survival of glioma patients. Functionally, depletion of ADAMTS9-AS1 significantly suppressed the proliferation, migration and invasion in glioma cell lines (U251 and U87), as shown via CCK-8 assay, Edu corporation assay, wound healing assay and transwell assay. Furthermore, we demonstrated that knockdown of ADAMTS9-AS1 suppressed Wnt1, ß-catenin, c-myc and PCNA, while upregulating E-cadherin expression. In conclusion, our data revealed that ADAMTS9-AS1 confers oncogenic function in the progression of glioma, thus targeting ADAMTS9-AS1 might be a promising therapeutic strategy for this disease.

Improved detection of focal cortical dysplasia in normal-appearing FLAIR images using a Bayesian classifier.

PURPOSE: Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) is a malformation of cortical development that often causes pharmacologically intractable epilepsy. However, FCD lesions are frequently characterized by minor structural abnormalities that can easily go unrecognized, making diagnosis difficult. Therefore, many epileptic patients have had pathologically confirmed FCD lesions that appeared normal in pre-surgical fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) magnetic resonance (MR) studies. Such lesions are called "FLAIR-negative." This study aimed to improve the detection of histopathologically verified FCD in a sample of patients without visually appreciable lesions. METHODS: The technique first extracts a series of features from a FLAIR image. Then, three naive Bayesian classifiers with probability (NBCP) are trained based on different numbers of feature maps to classify voxels as lesional or healthy voxels and assign the lesions a probability of correct classification. This method classifies the three-dimensional (3D) images of all patients using leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV). Finally, the 3D lesion probability map, including epileptogenic lesions, is obtained by removing false-positive voxel outliers using the morphological method. The performance of the NBCP was assessed for quantitative analysis by specificity, accuracy, recall, precision, and Dice coefficient in subject-wise, lesion-wise, and voxel-wise manners. RESULTS: The best detection results were obtained by using four features: cortical thickness, symmetry, K-means, and modified texture energy. There were eight lesions in seven patients. The subject-wise sensitivity of the proposed method was 85.71% (6/7). Seven out of eight lesions were detected, so the lesion-wise sensitivity was 87.50% (7/8). No significant differences in effectiveness were found between automated lesion detection using four features and lesion detection using manual segmentation, as voxels were quantitatively analyzed in terms of specificity (mean ± SD = 99.64 ± 0.13), accuracy (mean ± SD = 99.62 ± 0.14), recall (mean ± SD = 73.27 ± 26.11), precision (mean ± SD = 11.93 ± 8.16), and Dice coefficient (mean ± SD = 22.82 ± 15.57). CONCLUSION: We developed a novel automatic voxel-based method to improve the detection of FCD FLAIR-negative lesions. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to detect FCD lesions that appear normal in pre-surgical 3D high-resolution FLAIR images alone with a limited number of radiomics features. We optimized the algorithm and selected the best prior probability to improve the detection. For non-temporal lobe epilepsy (non-TLE) patients, lesions could be accurately located, although there were still false-positive areas.