Use of antiviral drugs and incidence of Parkinson's disease in Taiwan.

Patients infected with herpes zoster might be at risk for Parkinson's disease (PD). However, antiviral drugs may impede viral deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis. This study aimed to determine whether the currently observed association between herpes zoster and PD is consistent with previous findings, and whether antiviral drug use is associated with PD. This retrospective cohort study used the Longitudinal Generation Tracking Database. We included patients aged 40 years and above and applied propensity score matching at 1:1 ratio for study comparability. PD risk was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression methods. A total of 234,730 people were analyzed. The adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) for PD in patients with herpes zoster was 1.05. Furthermore, the overall incidence of PD was lower in those treated with antiviral drugs than in the untreated ones (3.17 vs. 3.76 per 1,000 person-years); the aHR was 0.84. After stratifying for sex or age, a similar result was observed. In conclusion, herpes zoster may increase the risk of PD, particularly among females, but receiving antiviral treatment reduces the risk by 16%. Therefore, using antiviral drugs may help prevent PD. However, additional research is required to determine the underlying mechanism(s).

Automated osteoporosis classification and T-score prediction using hip radiographs via deep learning algorithm.

Background: Despite being the gold standard for diagnosing osteoporosis, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is an underutilized screening tool for osteoporosis. Objectives: This study proposed and validated a controllable feature layer of a convolutional neural network (CNN) model with a preprocessing image algorithm to classify osteoporosis and predict T-score on the proximal hip region via simple hip radiographs. Design: This was a single-center, retrospective study. Methods: An image dataset of 3460 unilateral hip images from 1730 patients (age ⩾50 years) was retrospectively collected with matched DXA assessment for T-score for the targeted proximal hip regions to train (2473 unilateral hip images from 1430 patients) and test (497 unilateral hip images from 300 patients) the proposed CNN model. All images were processed with a fully automated CNN model, X1AI-Osteo. Results: The proposed screening tool illustrated a better performance (sensitivity: 97.2%; specificity: 95.6%; positive predictive value: 95.7%; negative predictive value: 97.1%; area under the curve: 0.96) than the open-sourced CNN models in predicting osteoporosis. Moreover, when combining variables, including age, body mass index, and sex as features in the training metric, there was high consistency in the T-score on the targeted hip regions between the proposed CNN model and the DXA (r = 0.996, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The proposed CNN model may identify osteoporosis and predict T-scores on the targeted hip regions from simple hip radiographs with high accuracy, highlighting the future application for population-based opportunistic osteoporosis screening with low cost and high adaptability for a broader population at risk. Trial registration: TMU-JIRB N201909036.

Association Between Long­Term Exposure to Air Pollution and the Rate of Mortality After Hip Fracture Surgery in Patients Older Than 60 Years: Nationwide Cohort Study in Taiwan.

BACKGROUND: To enhance postoperative patient survival, particularly in older adults, understanding the predictors of mortality following hip fracture becomes paramount. Air pollution, a prominent global environmental issue, has been linked to heightened morbidity and mortality across a spectrum of diseases. Nevertheless, the precise impact of air pollution on hip fracture outcomes remains elusive. OBJECTIVE: This retrospective study aims to comprehensively investigate the profound influence of a decade-long exposure to 12 diverse air pollutants on the risk of post-hip fracture mortality among older Taiwanese patients (older than 60 years). We hypothesized that enduring long-term exposure to air pollution would significantly elevate the 1-year mortality rate following hip fracture surgery. METHODS: From Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database, we obtained the data of patients who underwent hip fracture surgery between July 1, 2003, and December 31, 2013. Using patients' insurance registration data, we estimated their cumulative exposure levels to sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), particulate matter having a size of <10 µm (PM10), particulate matter having a size of <2.5 µm (PM2.5), nitrogen oxides (NOX), nitrogen monoxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), total hydrocarbons (THC), nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHC), and methane (CH4). We quantified the dose-response relationship between these air pollutants and the risk of mortality by calculating hazard ratios associated with a 1 SD increase in exposure levels over a decade. RESULTS: Long-term exposure to SO2, CO, PM10, PM2.5, NOX, NO, NO2, THC, NMHC, and CH4 demonstrated significant associations with heightened all-cause mortality risk within 1 year post hip fracture surgery among older adults. For older adults, each 1 SD increment in the average exposure levels of SO2, CO, PM10, PM2.5, NOX, NO, NO2, THC, NMHC, and CH4 corresponded to a substantial escalation in mortality risk, with increments of 14%, 49%, 18%, 12%, 41%, 33%, 38%, 20%, 9%, and 26%, respectively. We further noted a 35% reduction in the hazard ratio for O3 exposure suggesting a potential protective effect, along with a trend of potentially protective effects of CO2. CONCLUSIONS: This comprehensive nationwide retrospective study, grounded in a population-based approach, demonstrated that long-term exposure to specific air pollutants significantly increased the risk of all-cause mortality within 1 year after hip fracture surgery in older Taiwanese adults. A reduction in the levels of SO2, CO, PM10, PM2.5, NOX, NO, NO2, THC, NMHC, and CH4 may reduce the risk of mortality after hip fracture surgery. This study provides robust evidence and highlights the substantial impact of air pollution on the outcomes of hip fractures.

Novel Bidirectional Output Ytterbium-Doped High Power Fiber Lasers: From Continuous to Quasi-Continuous.

Traditional ytterbium-doped high-power fiber lasers generally use a unidirectional output structure. To reduce the cost and improve the efficiency of the fiber laser, we propose a bidirectional output fiber laser (BOFL). The BOFL has many advantages over that of the traditional unidirectional output fiber laser (UOFL) and has a wide application in the industrial field. In theory, the model of the BOFL is established, and a comparison of the nonlinear effect in the traditional UOFL and the BOFL is studied. Experimentally, high-power continuous wave (CW) and quasi-continuous wave (QCW) BOFLs are demonstrated. In the continuous laser, we first combine the BOFL with the oscillating amplifying integrated structure, and a near-single-mode bidirectional 2 × 4 kW output with a total power of above 8 kW is demonstrated. Then, with the simple BOFL, a CW bidirectional 2 × 5 kW output with a total power of above 10 kW is demonstrated. By means of pump source modulation, a QCW BOFL is developed, and the output of a near-single mode QCW laser with a peak output of 2 × 4.5 kW with a total peak power of more than 9 kW is realized. Both CW and QCW output BOFL are the highest powers reported at present.

2 × 4.5 kW bidirectional output near-single-mode quasi-continuous wave monolithic fiber laser.

Quasi-continuous wave (QCW) laser has a very broad application in the industrial field, especially in additive manufacturing, surface treatment, laser cutting, laser cleaning, and laser drilling. Compared with the unidirectional fiber laser, the bidirectional output can be achieved two ports high power output with only one resonator, which can greatly reduce the industrial cost. However, there are few researches on QCW fiber lasers with bidirectional output. Here, we optimized and demonstrated a bidirectional output QCW laser with output power of 2 × 4.5 kW based on a double-clad ytterbium-doped fiber with a core/cladding diameter of 25/400 µm. The peak power at both ends reached 4515 W and 4694 W, respectively. The Raman suppression ratio at both ends of A and B is about 12 dB, and the beam quality factor M2 is about 1.37 and 1.42, respectively. The corresponding optical-to-optical efficiency is 79%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest peak power of QCW laser with near-single-mode beam quality in a bidirectional structure laser.

Relieving Stress Concentration through Anion-Cation Codoping toward Highly Stable Nickel-Rich Cathode.

Nickel-rich LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.015O2 (NCA) with excellent energy density is considered one of the most promising cathodes for lithium-ion batteries. Nevertheless, the stress concentration caused by Li+/Ni2+ mixing and oxygen vacancies leads to the structural collapse and obvious capacity degradation of NCA. Herein, a facile codoping of anion (F-)-cation (Mg2+) strategy is proposed to address these problems. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of F- and Mg2+, the codoped material exhibits alleviated Li+/Ni2+ mixing and demonstrates enhanced electrochemical performance at high voltage (≥4.5 V), outperformed the pristine and F-/Mg2+ single-doped counterparts. Combined experimental and theoretical studies reveal that Mg2+ and F- codoping decreases the Li+ diffusion energy barrier and enhances the Li+ transport kinetics. In particular, the codoping synergistically suppresses the Li+/Ni2+ mixing and lattice oxygen escape, and alleviates the stress-strain accumulation, thereby inhibiting crack propagation and improving the electrochemical performance of the NCA. As a consequence, the designed Li0.99Mg0.01Ni0.8Co0.15Al0.05O0.98F0.02 (Mg1+F2) demonstrates a much higher capacity retention of 82.65% than NCA (55.69%) even after 200 cycles at 2.8-4.5 V under 1 C. Furthermore, the capacity retention rate of the Mg1+F2||graphite pouch cell after 500 cycles is 89.6% compared to that of the NCA (only 79.4%).

Towards a tapered Yb-doped fiber-based narrow linewidth single-mode fiber laser with a high signal to Raman ratio.

We demonstrate an all-fiber high-power narrow-linewidth fiber laser based on a homemade tapered Yb-doped fiber (T-YDF). The laser performance is investigated and systematically compared with different seed powers and pump manners. The experimental results reveal that the injected seed power requires a trade-off designed to take into account the impact of spectral broadening, nonlinear effects, and transverse mode instability (TMI). Compared with the co-pump manner, the counter-pump manner performs well in inhibiting nonlinearities, spectral broadening, and improving the TMI threshold. Under the counter-pump manner, this narrow-linewidth T-YDF amplifier realized a 2.09 kW output power with a 3 dB spectral linewidth of ∼0.34 nm, a beam quality of M2∼1.28 and a high Raman suppression ratio over 53.5 dB, the highest reported power for such a T-YDF-based narrow-linewidth single-mode laser, to the best of our knowledge. This work provides a promising pathway towards implementing monolithic high-power narrow-linewidth single-mode fiber lasers.

Demonstration of 3kW × 2 ports bidirectional output oscillating-amplifying integrated fiber laser employing chirped and tilted fiber Bragg gratings for co-SRS suppression.

Bidirectional output oscillating-amplifying integrated fiber laser (B-OAIFL) is a newly developed configuration with many advantages like compactness and good reliability. In this work, a B-OAIFL with a low time-stabilized threshold was constructed by employing a pair of side pump/signal combiner in the oscillating section, which demonstrates smooth temporal characteristics with no pulse detected by the photodetector at the output power level of only a few of tens Watts. We investigated the effect of side pumping on the Raman Stokes light and verified its contribution to mitigating the temporal-chaos-induced stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). The phenomenon of co-SRS caused by the mutual excitation of backward Stokes light from two amplifying sections under bidirectional pumping was first reported and studied. A pair of chirped and tilted fiber Bragg gratings (CTFBGs) were applied between the oscillating and amplifying sections to suppress the co-SRS, and the effect of the number of CTFBGs on the suppression of co-SRS was studied in detail experimentally. Finally, we successfully suppressed the co-SRS, and achieved a 3kW × 2 ports laser output, with a near-single-mode beam quality of M A 2∼1.3,M B 2∼1.4. In contrast, without the use of CTFBG, only a 2 kW-level output was obtained from each port, limited by co-SRS (with an SRS suppression ratio of less than 15 dB). The maximum output power of end A and end B is 3133 W and 3213 W, with the SRS suppression ratio of about 27.6 dB and 28.1 dB, respectively. No TMI features were observed under bidirectional pumping. The results demonstrate a significant potential for further power scaling based on this configuration. To the best of our knowledge, it is the highest output power achieved based on the B-OAIFL.

Influence of Pump Current Waveform on The Mitigation of Transverse Mode Instability in Fiber Laser Oscillator.

We carry out a detailed investigation of TMI mitigation by pump modulation based on multiple current waveforms in a fiber laser oscillator. Compared with continuous wave (CW), the modulation of various waveforms, including sinusoidal wave, triangular wave, and pulse wave with a duty cycle of 50% and 60%, can increase the TMI threshold. The average output power of a stabilized beam is boosted via the adjustment of phase difference between the signal channels. The TMI threshold is increased to 270 W under a modulation of pulse wave (duty cycle: 60%) with a phase difference of 440 µs, where the beam quality is 1.45. This threshold can be further improved by adding groups of pump LDs and drivers, which is a promising approach for beam stabilization of high-power fiber lasers.

Association between hyperlipidemia and trigger finger: A nationwide population-based cohort study.

The cause of trigger fingers remains uncertain. High lipid levels in the blood may reduce blood supply to the distal fingers and promote inflammation. We aimed to explore the association between hyperlipidemia and trigger finger. A nationwide population-based cohort study using longitudinal data from 2000 to 2013, 41,421 patients were included in the hyperlipidemia cohort and 82,842 age- and sex-matched patients were included in the control cohort. The mean age was 49.90 ± 14.73 years in the hyperlipidemia cohort and 49.79 ± 14.71 years in the control cohort. After adjusting for possible comorbidities, the hazard ratio of trigger finger in the hyperlipidemia cohort was 4.03 (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.57-4.55), with values of 4.59 (95% CI, 3.67-5.73) and 3.77 (95% CI, 3.26-4.36) among male and female patients, respectively. This large-scale population-based study demonstrated that hyperlipidemia is correlated to trigger finger.

Origin of SRS-induced beam quality distortion under TMI threshold.

In high power fiber lasers, the degradation of beam quality caused by Raman effect has attracted more and more attention in recent years, but its physical mechanism is still unclear. We're going to differentiate between heat effect and nonlinear effect by duty cycle operation. The evolution of beam quality at different pump duty cycles has been studied based on a quasi-continuous wave (QCW) fiber laser. It is found that even if the Stokes intensity is only -6 dB (energy proportion: 26%) lower than that of the signal light intensity, the beam quality has no obvious change with the duty cycle of 5%; on the contrary, when the duty cycle gradually approaches 100% (CW-pumped scheme), the beam quality distortion changes faster and faster with the increase of Stokes intensity. The experimental results are contrary to core-pumped Raman effect theory [IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett.34, 215 (2022)10.1109/LPT.2022.3148999], and further analysis confirms that the heat accumulation in the process of Stokes frequency shift should be responsible for this phenomenon. That is the first time, to the best of our knowledge, for intuitive reveal of the origin of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS)-induced beam quality distortion under transverse mode instability (TMI) threshold in an experiment.

Long-term ambient hydrocarbon exposure and incidence of urinary bladder cancer.

Particulate matter and volatile organic compounds, including total hydrocarbons (THCs), are major ambient air pollutants. Primary nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) originate from vehicle emissions. The association between air pollution and urinary bladder cancer (UBC) is debatable. We investigated whether long-term exposure to ambient hydrocarbons increases UBC risk among people aged ≥ 20 years in Taiwan. Linkage dataset research with longitudinal design was conducted among 589,135 initially cancer-free individuals during 2000-2013; 12 airborne pollutants were identified. Several Cox models considering potential confounders were employed. The study outcomes were invasive or in situ UBC incidence over time. The targeted pollutant concentration was divided into three tertiles: T1/T2/T3. The mean age of individuals at risk was 42.5 (SD 15.7), and 50.5% of the individuals were men. The mean daily average over 10 years of airborne THC concentration was 2.25 ppm (SD 0.13), and NMHC was 0.29 ppm (SD 0.09). Both pollutants show long-term monotonic downward trend over time using the Mann-Kendall test. There was a dose-dependent increase in UBC at follow-up. UBC incidence per 100,000 enrollees according to T1/T2/T3 exposure to THC was 60.9, 221.2, and 651.8, respectively; it was 170.0/349.5/426.7 per 100,000 enrollees, corresponding to T1/T2/T3 exposure to NMHC, respectively. Without controlling for confounding air pollutants, the adjusted hazard ratio (adj.HR) was 1.83 (95% CI 1.75-1.91) per 0.13-ppm increase in THC; after controlling for PM2.5, adj.HR was even higher at 2.09 (95% CI 1.99-2.19). The adj.HR was 1.37 (95% CI 1.32-1.43) per 0.09-ppm increase in ambient NMHC concentration. After controlling for SO2 and CH4, the adj.HR was 1.10 (95% CI 1.06-1.15). Sensitivity analyses showed that UBC development risk was not sex-specific or influenced by diabetes status. Long-term exposure to THC and NMHC may be a risk factor for UBC development. Acknowledging pollutant sources can inform risk management strategies.

AIEgen-Enabled Multicolor Visualization for the Formation of Supramolecular Polymer Networks.

Extensive reports on the use of supramolecular polymer networks (SPNs) in self-healing materials, controlled release system and degradable products have led more researchers to tap their potential owing to the unique properties. Yet, the attendant efforts in the visualization through conventional luminescence methods during the formation of SPNs have been met with limited success. Herein, we designed a special type of SPNs prepared by PPMU polymer chains containing pyrene benzohydrazonate (PBHZ) molecules as AIEgens for the multicolor visualization with naked eyes. The complete detection of the formation process of the networks relied on the PBHZ molecules with aggregation-induced ratiometric emission (AIRE) effect, which enabled the fluorescence of the polymer networks transits from blue to cyan, and then to green with the increasing crosslinking degree derived from the hydrogen bonds between 2-ureido-4-pyrimidone (UPy) units of the polymer chains. Additionally, we certificated the stimuli-responsiveness of the obtained SPNs, and the fluorescence change, as well as observing the morphology transition. The AIEgen-enabled multicolor visualization of the formation of SPNs may provide better understanding of the details of the crosslinking interactions in the microstructural evolution, giving more inspiration for the multifunctional products based on SPNs.

Demonstration of constant-cladding tapered-core Yb-doped fiber for mitigating thermally-induced mode instability in high-power monolithic fiber amplifiers.

In this work, a large-mode-area (LMA) step-index constant-cladding tapered-core (CCTC) Yb-doped fiber with a cladding diameter of ∼600 µm is successfully fabricated. The CCTC fiber has a small-core region (diameter of ∼20 µm) at both ends and a large-core region (diameter of ∼36 µm) in the middle. To prove the laser performance of the CCTC fiber, a detailed comparison experiment with conventional uniform fiber with the same effective core diameter is carried out in a multi-kW all-fiber MOPA configuration. The experimental results show that employing the CCTC fiber can effectively mitigate the thermally-induced transverse mode instability (TMI) in both co-pump and counter-pump schemes, and realize high slope efficiency and single-mode beam quality (M2∼1.30). Under the counter-pump scheme, the TMI threshold of the CCTC fiber is observed at ∼2.49 kW with a slope efficiency of 86.2%, while the uniform fiber amplifier exhibits a TMI threshold of ∼2.05 kW. The theoretical analysis based on a semi-analytical model indicates this CCTC fiber can effectively improve the TMI threshold owing to a stronger gain saturation. Our results verify the great potential of such an LMA CCTC fiber to mitigate thermal-induced TMI effect and achieve single-mode operation without sacrifice of laser efficiency in high power monolithic fiber lasers, and the further power scaling is expected by optimizing the fiber design.

Enhancing Mechanical Performance of a Polymer Material by Incorporating Pillar[5]arene-Based Host-Guest Interactions.

Polymer gels have been widely used in the field for tissue engineering, sensing, and drug delivery due to their excellent biocompatibility, hydrophilicity, and degradability. However, common polymer gels are easily deformed on account of their relatively weak mechanical properties, thereby hindering their application fields, as well as shortening their service life. The incorporation of reversible non-covalent bonds is capable of improving the mechanical properties of polymer gels. Thus, here, a poly(methyl methacrylate) polymer network was prepared by introducing host-guest interactions between pillar[5]arene and pyridine cation. Owing to the incorporated host-guest interactions, the modified polymer gels exhibited extraordinary mechanical properties according to the results of the tensile tests. In addition, the influence of the host-guest interaction on the mechanical properties of the gels was also proved by rheological experiments and swelling experiments.

2 × 2†kW near-single-mode bidirectional high-power output from a single-cavity monolithic fiber laser.

Traditional monolithic fiber lasers can only achieve unidirectional high-power laser output. In this Letter, a novel high-power linear cavity fiber laser that can achieve bidirectional high-power output is proposed and demonstrated. In an ordinary laser resonant cavity, we replace the high-reflectivity fiber Bragg grating with a low-reflectivity fiber Bragg grating to realize bidirectional laser output. In our experiment, the laser cavity was composed of two fiber Bragg gratings with a reflectivity of about 10%. The pump power provided by the 976 nm laser diodes was injected into a double-clad Yb-doped fiber with core/cladding diameters of 20/400 µm. At the maximum pump power, the bidirectional output powers were 2025 W and 1948 W, respectively, and the output laser beam quality (M2 factor) at both ends was about 1.5. For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, the feasibility of a bidirectional output fiber laser that can achieve double high (2-kW-level) power was verified. Compared with a traditional unidirectional output laser, this type of bidirectional output laser can achieve a double high-power laser by employing a laser resonant cavity. Thus, the average cost and structure size can be further reduced in mass production.

Enhanced Risk of Osteoporotic Fracture in Patients with Sarcopenia: A National Population-Based Study in Taiwan.

Sarcopenia is a progressive and generalized skeletal muscle disorder associated with poor health outcomes in older adults. However, its association with the risk of fracture risk is yet to be clarified. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the incidence and consequence of osteoporosis-related fractures among patients with sarcopenia in Taiwan. A retrospective, population-based study on 616 patients with sarcopenia, aged >40 years, and 1232 individuals without sarcopenia was conducted to evaluate claims data from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database collected in the period January 2000−December 2013. The incidence rate of osteoporosis-related fracture was 18.13 and 14.61 per 1000 person years in the patients with sarcopenia and comparison cohort, respectively. Patients with sarcopenia had a greater osteoporotic fracture risk (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 2.11; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.47−3.04) after correcting for possible confounding. Additionally, females showed statistically significant correlations of sarcopenia with osteoporosis-related fracture risk (HR 1.53; CI 0.83−2.8 for males and HR 2.40, CI 1.51−3.81 for females). During this retrospective study on the fracture risk in Taiwan, an adverse impact of sarcopenia was observed, which substantiates the need to work toward sarcopenia prevention and interventions to reverse fracture susceptibility in patients with sarcopenia.

Radiofrequency ablation for liver tumors abutting complex blood vessel structures: treatment protocol optimization using response surface method and computer modeling.

OBJECTIVE: To achieve a result of a large tumor ablation volume with minimal thermal damage to the surrounding blood vessels by designing a few clinically-adjustable operating parameters in radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for liver tumors abutting complex vascular structures. METHODS: Response surface method (RSM) was employed to correlate the ablated tumor volume (Ra) and thermal damage to blood vessels (Dt) based on RFA operating parameters: ablation time, electrode position, and insertion angle. A coupled electric-thermal-fluid RFA computer model was created as the testbed for RSM to simulate RFA process. Then, an optimal RFA protocol for the two conflicting goals, namely (1) large tumor ablation and (2) small thermal damage to the surrounding blood vessels, has been achieved under a specific ablation environment. RESULTS: Linear regression analysis confirmed that the RFA protocol significantly affected Ra and Dt (the adjusted coefficient of determination Radj2 = 93.61% and 95.03%, respectively). For a proposed liver tumor scenario (liver tumor with a dimension of 4×3×2.9 cm3 abutting a complex vascular structure), an optimized RFA protocol was found based on the regression results in RSM. Compared with a reference RFA protocol, in which the electrode was centered in the tumor with a 12-min ablation time, the optimized RFA protocol has increased Ra  from 98.1% to 99.6% and decreased Dt from 4.1% to 0.4%, achieving nearly the complete ablation of proposed liver tumor and ignorable thermal damages to vessels. CONCLUSION: This work showed that it is possible to design a few clinically-adjustable operating parameters of RFA for achieving a large tumor ablation volume while minimizing thermal damage to the surrounding blood vessels.

Annotating functional effects of non-coding variants in neuropsychiatric cell types by deep transfer learning.

Genomewide association studies (GWAS) have identified a large number of loci associated with neuropsychiatric traits, however, understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying these loci remains difficult. To help prioritize causal variants and interpret their functions, computational methods have been developed to predict regulatory effects of non-coding variants. An emerging approach to variant annotation is deep learning models that predict regulatory functions from DNA sequences alone. While such models have been trained on large publicly available dataset such as ENCODE, neuropsychiatric trait-related cell types are under-represented in these datasets, thus there is an urgent need of better tools and resources to annotate variant functions in such cellular contexts. To fill this gap, we collected a large collection of neurodevelopment-related cell/tissue types, and trained deep Convolutional Neural Networks (ResNet) using such data. Furthermore, our model, called MetaChrom, borrows information from public epigenomic consortium to improve the accuracy via transfer learning. We show that MetaChrom is substantially better in predicting experimentally determined chromatin accessibility variants than popular variant annotation tools such as CADD and delta-SVM. By combining GWAS data with MetaChrom predictions, we prioritized 31 SNPs for Schizophrenia, suggesting potential risk genes and the biological contexts where they act. In summary, MetaChrom provides functional annotations of any DNA variants in the neuro-development context and the general method of MetaChrom can also be extended to other disease-related cell or tissue types.