Accurate in vivo real-time determination of the hydrogen concentration in different tissues of mice after hydrogen inhalation.

As an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic agent, hydrogen (H2) shows a promising potential in basic and clinical research against various diseases owing to its safety and efficacy. However, knowledge involving its underlying mechanisms of action, dosage effects, and dose duration remains limited. Previously, the dynamics of H2 concentrations in different tissues of rats after exogenous H2 inhalation had been detected by our team. Here, sequential changes of H2 concentrations in different tissues of another most commonly used experimental rodent mice were monitored in real time with an electrochemical H2 gas sensor during continuous different concentrations of H2 inhalation targeting on five tissues including brain, liver, spleen, kidney, and gastrocnemius. The results showed that the H2 saturation concentrations varied among tissues significantly regardless of the concentration of H2 inhaled, and they were detected the highest in the kidney but the lowest in the gastrocnemius. Meantime, it required a significant longer time to saturate in the thigh muscle. By comparing the H2 saturation concentrations of mice and rats, we found that there were no differences detected in most tissues except the kidney and spleen. Both gas diffusion and bloodstream transport could help the H2 reach to most organs. The results provide data reference for dosage selection, dose duration determination to ensure optimal therapeutic effects of H2 for mice experiments.

Magnetization transfer imaging of suicidal patients with major depressive disorder.

Magnetization transfer imaging (MTI) provides a quantitative measure of the macromolecular structural integrity of brain tissue, as represented by magnetization transfer ratio (MTR). In this study, we utilized MTI to identify biophysical alterations in MDD patients with a history of suicide attempts relative to MDD patients without such history. The participants were 36 medication-free MDD patients, with (N = 17) and without (N = 19) a history of a suicide attempt, and 28 healthy controls matched for age and gender. Whole brain voxel-based analysis was used to compare MTR across three groups and to analyze correlations with symptom severity and illness duration. We identified decreased MTR in left inferior parietal lobule and right superior parietal lobule in suicide attempters relative to both non-attempters and controls. Non-attempters also showed significantly reduced MTR in left inferior parietal lobule relative to controls, as well as an MTR reduction in left cerebellum. These abnormalities were not correlated with symptom severity or illness duration. Depressed patients with a history of suicide attempt showed bilateral abnormalities in parietal cortex compared to nonsuicidal depressed patients and healthy controls. Parietal lobe abnormalities might cause attentional dysfunction and impaired decision making to increase risk for suicidal behavior in MDD.

[Study on the ReHo in treatment-naïve of temporal lobe epilepsy patients with depressive symptoms using resting functional-MRI (fMRI)].

Epilepsy is a common neurological disease accompanied with laden economic burdens and heavy social resources consuming. Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is an important subtype of the epilepsies. Our experiment was aimed to characterize the regional brain function alteration among the treatment na? ve TLE patients using ReHo. We found that elevated regional ReHo was in the left insula in the TLE patients, and the right one was cingulated, while the decreasing ReHo was in right putamen. Our result demonstrated that the key components associated with the epilepsy symptoms had altered the regional function in the TLE patients, and the disruption of cortex-thalamus-striatum loop. Our experiment provides evidence on the pathophysiological alteration in treatment na? ve TLE patients.