Super-Resolution Imaging of the Extracellular Space in Living Brain Tissue.

The extracellular space (ECS) of the brain has an extremely complex spatial organization, which has defied conventional light microscopy. Consequently, despite a marked interest in the physiological roles of brain ECS, its structure and dynamics remain largely inaccessible for experimenters. We combined 3D-STED microscopy and fluorescent labeling of the extracellular fluid to develop super-resolution shadow imaging (SUSHI) of brain ECS in living organotypic brain slices. SUSHI enables quantitative analysis of ECS structure and reveals dynamics on multiple scales in response to a variety of physiological stimuli. Because SUSHI produces sharp negative images of all cellular structures, it also enables unbiased imaging of unlabeled brain cells with respect to their anatomical context. Moreover, the extracellular labeling strategy greatly alleviates problems of photobleaching and phototoxicity associated with traditional imaging approaches. As a straightforward variant of STED microscopy, SUSHI provides unprecedented access to the structure and dynamics of live brain ECS and neuropil.

Obesity is associated with alterations in anatomical connectivity of frontal-corpus callosum.

Obesity has been linked to abnormal frontal function, including the white matter fibers of anterior portion of the corpus callosum, which is crucial for information exchange within frontal cortex. However, alterations in white matter anatomical connectivity between corpus callosum and cortical regions in patients with obesity have not yet been investigated. Thus, we enrolled 72 obese and 60 age-/gender-matched normal weight participants who underwent clinical measurements and diffusion tensor imaging. Probabilistic tractography with connectivity-based classification was performed to segment the corpus callosum and quantify white matter anatomical connectivity between subregions of corpus callosum and cortical regions, and associations between corpus callosum-cortex white matter anatomical connectivity and clinical behaviors were also assessed. Relative to normal weight individuals, individuals with obesity exhibited significantly greater white matter anatomical connectivity of corpus callosum-orbitofrontal cortex, which was positively correlated with body mass index and self-reported disinhibition of eating behavior, and lower white matter anatomical connectivity of corpus callosum-prefrontal cortex, which was significantly negatively correlated with craving for high-calorie food cues. The findings show that alterations in white matter anatomical connectivity between corpus callosum and frontal regions involved in reward and executive control are associated with abnormal eating behaviors.

Three-dimensional cardiac magnetic resonance allows the identification of slow-conducting anatomical isthmuses in tetralogy of Fallot.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot remain at risk of life-threatening ventricular tachycardia related to slow-conducting anatomical isthmuses (SCAIs). Preventive ablation of SCAI identified by invasive electroanatomical mapping is increasingly performed. This study aimed to non-invasively identify SCAI using 3D late gadolinium enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance (3D-LGE-CMR). METHODS: Consecutive tetralogy of Fallot patients who underwent right ventricular electroanatomical mapping (RV-EAM) and 3D-LGE-CMR were included. High signal intensity threshold for abnormal myocardium was determined based on direct comparison of bipolar voltages and signal intensity by co-registration of RV-EAM with 3D-LGE-CMR. The diagnostic performance of 3D-LGE-CMR to non-invasively identify SCAI was determined, validated in a second cohort, and compared with the discriminative ability of proposed risk scores. RESULTS: The derivation cohort consisted of 48 (34 ± 16 years) and the validation cohort of 53 patients (36 ± 18 years). In the derivation cohort, 78 of 107 anatomical isthmuses (AIs) identified by EAM were normal-conducting AI, 22 were SCAI, and 7 blocked AI. High signal intensity threshold was 42% of the maximal signal intensity. The sensitivity and specificity of 3D-LGE-CMR for identifying SCAI or blocked AI were 100% and 90%, respectively. In the validation cohort, 85 of 124 AIs were normal-conducting AI, 36 were SCAI, and 3 blocked AI. The sensitivity and specificity of 3D-LGE-CMR were 95% and 91%, respectively. All risk scores showed an at best modest performance to identify SCAI (area under the curve ≤ .68). CONCLUSIONS: 3D late gadolinium enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance can identify SCAI with excellent accuracy and may refine non-invasive risk stratification and patient selection for invasive EAM in tetralogy of Fallot.

Mechanisms of stretch-induced electro-anatomical remodeling and atrial arrhythmogenesis.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac rhythm disorder, often occurring in the setting of atrial distension and elevated myocardialstretch. While various mechano-electrochemical signal transduction pathways have been linked to AF development and progression, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood, hampering AF therapies. In this review, we describe different aspects of stretch-induced electro-anatomical remodeling as seen in animal models and in patients with AF. Specifically, we focus on cellular and molecular mechanisms that are responsible for mechano-electrochemical signal transduction and the development of ectopic beats triggering AF from pulmonary veins, the most common source of paroxysmal AF. Furthermore, we describe structural changes caused by stretch occurring before and shortly after the onset of AF as well as during AF progression, contributing to longstanding forms of AF. We also propose mechanical stretch as a new dimension to the concept "AF begets AF", in addition to underlying diseases. Finally, we discuss the mechanisms of these electro-anatomical alterations in a search for potential therapeutic strategies and the development of novel antiarrhythmic drugs targeted at the components of mechano-electrochemical signal transduction not only in cardiac myocytes, but also in cardiac non-myocyte cells.

Morphological, anatomical, and transcriptomics analysis reveals the regulatory mechanisms of cassava plant height development.

BACKGROUND: Cassava is one of three major potato crops and the sixth most important food crop globally. Improving yield remains a primary aim in cassava breeding. Notably, plant height significantly impacts the yield and quality of crops; however, the mechanisms underlying cassava plant height development are yet to be elucidated. RESULTS: In this study, we investigated the mechanisms responsible for cassava plant height development using phenotypic, anatomical, and transcriptomic analyses. Phenotypic and anatomical analysis revealed that compared to the high-stem cassava cultivar, the dwarf-stem cassava cultivar exhibited a significant reduction in plant height and a notable increase in internode tissue xylem area. Meanwhile, physiological analysis demonstrated that the lignin content of dwarf cassava was significantly higher than that of high cassava. Notably, transcriptome analysis of internode tissues identified several differentially expressed genes involved in cell wall synthesis and expansion, plant hormone signal transduction, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, and flavonoid biosynthesis between the two cassava cultivars. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that internode tissue cell division, secondary wall lignification, and hormone-related gene expression play important roles in cassava plant height development. Ultimately, this study provides new insights into the mechanisms of plant height morphogenesis in cassava and identifies candidate regulatory genes associated with plant height that can serve as valuable genetic resources for future crop dwarfing breeding.

Exploring the potential of representation and transfer learning for anatomical neuroimaging: Application to psychiatry.

The perspective of personalized medicine for brain disorders requires efficient learning models for anatomical neuroimaging-based prediction of clinical conditions. There is now a consensus on the benefit of deep learning (DL) in addressing many medical imaging tasks, such as image segmentation. However, for single-subject prediction problems, recent studies yielded contradictory results when comparing DL with Standard Machine Learning (SML) on top of classical feature extraction. Most existing comparative studies were limited in predicting phenotypes of little clinical interest, such as sex and age, and using a single dataset. Moreover, they conducted a limited analysis of the employed image pre-processing and feature selection strategies. This paper extensively compares DL and SML prediction capacity on five multi-site problems, including three increasingly complex clinical applications in psychiatry namely schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis. To compensate for the relative scarcity of neuroimaging data on these clinical datasets, we also evaluate three pre-training strategies for transfer learning from brain imaging of the general healthy population: self-supervised learning, generative modeling and supervised learning with age. Overall, we find similar performance between randomly initialized DL and SML for the three clinical tasks and a similar scaling trend for sex prediction. This was replicated on an external dataset. We also show highly correlated discriminative brain regions between DL and linear ML models in all problems. Nonetheless, we demonstrate that self-supervised pre-training on large-scale healthy population imaging datasets (N≈10k), along with Deep Ensemble, allows DL to learn robust and transferable representations to smaller-scale clinical datasets (N≤1k). It largely outperforms SML on 2 out of 3 clinical tasks both in internal and external test sets. These findings suggest that the improvement of DL over SML in anatomical neuroimaging mainly comes from its capacity to learn meaningful and useful abstract representations of the brain anatomy, and it sheds light on the potential of transfer learning for personalized medicine in psychiatry.

Adaptive strategies based on shrub leaf-stem anatomy and their environmental interpretations in the eastern Qaidam Basin.

BACKGROUND: Water stress seriously affects the survival of plants in natural ecosystems. Plant resistance to water stress relies on adaptive strategies, which are mainly based on plant anatomy with following relevant functions: (1) increase in water uptake and storage; (2) reduction of water loss; and (3) mechanical reinforcement of tissues. We measured 15 leaf-stem anatomical traits of five dominant shrub species from 12 community plots in the eastern Qaidam Basin to explore adaptive strategies based on plant leaf-stem anatomy at species and community levels. and their relationship with environmental stresses were tested. RESULTS: Results showed that the combination of leaf-stem anatomical traits formed three types of adaptive strategies with the drought tolerance of leaf and stem taken as two coordinate axes. Three types of water stress were caused by environmental factors in the eastern Qaidam Basin, and the established adaptive strategy triangle could be well explained by these environmental stresses. The interpretation of the strategic triangle was as follows: (1) exploitative plant strategy, in which leaf and stem adopt the hydraulic efficiency strategy and safety strategy, respectively. This strategy is mostly applied to plants in sandy desert (i.e., Nitraria tangutorum, and Artemisia sphaerocephala) which is mainly influenced by drought stress; (2) stable plant strategy, in which both leaf/assimilation branches and stem adopt hydraulic safety strategy. This strategy is mostly applied to plants in salty desert (i.e., Kalidium foliatum and Haloxylon ammodendron) which aridity has little effect on them; and (3) opportunistic plant strategy, in which leaf and stem adopt hydraulic safety strategy and water transport efficiency strategy. This strategy is mostly applied to plants in multiple habitats (i.e., Sympegma regelii) which is mainly affected by coldness stress. CONCLUSION: The proposed adaptive strategy system could provide a basis for elucidating the ecological adaptation mechanism of desert woody plants and the scientific management of natural vegetation in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Leaf ecological stoichiometry and anatomical structural adaptation mechanisms of Quercus sect. Heterobalanus in southeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

BACKGROUND: With the dramatic uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) and the increase in altitude in the Pliocene, the environment became dry and cold, thermophilous plants that originally inhabited ancient subtropical forest essentially disappeared. However, Quercus sect. Heterobalanus (QSH) have gradually become dominant or constructive species distributed on harsh sites in the Hengduan Mountains range in southeastern QTP, Southwest China. Ecological stoichiometry reveals the survival strategies plants adopt to adapt to changing environment by quantifying the proportions and relationships of elements in plants. Simultaneously, as the most sensitive organs of plants to their environment, the structure of leaves reflects of the long-term adaptability of plants to their surrounding environments. Therefore, ecological adaptation mechanisms related to ecological stoichiometry and leaf anatomical structure of QSH were explored. In this study, stoichiometric characteristics were determined by measuring leaf carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) contents, and morphological adaptations were determined by examining leaf anatomical traits with microscopy. RESULTS: Different QSH life forms and species had different nutrient allocation strategies. Leaves of QSH plants had higher C and P and lower N contents and higher N and lower P utilization efficiencies. According to an N: P ratio threshold, the growth of QSH species was limited by N, except that of Q. aquifolioides and Q. longispica, which was limited by both N and P. Although stoichiometric homeostasis of C, N, and P and C: N, C: P, and N: P ratios differed slightly across life forms and species, the overall degree of homeostasis was strong, with strictly homeostatic, homeostatic, and weakly homeostatic regulation. In addition, QSH leaves had compound epidermis, thick cuticle, developed palisade tissue and spongy tissue. However, leaves were relatively thin overall, possibly due to leaf leathering and lignification, which is strategy to resist stress from UV radiation, drought, and frost. Furthermore, contents of C, N, and P and stoichiometric ratios were significantly correlated with leaf anatomical traits. CONCLUSIONS: QSH adapt to the plateau environment by adjusting the content and utilization efficiencies of C, N, and P elements. Strong stoichiometric homeostasis of QSH was likely a strategy to mitigate nutrient limitation. The unique leaf structure of the compound epidermis, thick cuticle, well-developed palisade tissue and spongy tissue is another adaptive mechanism for QSH to survive in the plateau environment. The anatomical adaptations and nutrient utilization strategies of QSH may have coevolved during long-term succession over millions of years.

Microevolution of Candida glabrata (Nakaseomyces glabrata) during an infection.

Candida glabrata (Nakaseomyces glabrata) is an emergent and opportunistic fungal pathogen that colonizes and persists in different niches within its human host. In this work, we studied five clinical isolates from one patient (P7), that have a clonal origin, and all of which come from blood cultures except one, P7-3, obtained from a urine culture. We found phenotypic variation such as sensitivity to high temperature, oxidative stress, susceptibility to two classes of antifungal agents, and cell wall porosity. Only isolate P7-3 is highly resistant to the echinocandin caspofungin while the other four isolates from P7 are sensitive. However, this same isolate P7-3, is the only one that displays susceptibility to fluconazole (FLC), while the rest of the isolates are resistant to this antifungal. We sequenced the PDR1 gene which encodes a transcription factor required to induce the expression of several genes involved in the resistance to FLC and found that all the isolates encode for the same Pdr1 amino acid sequence except for the last isolate P7-5, which contains a single amino acid change, G1099C in the putative Pdr1 transactivation domain. Consistent with the resistance to FLC, we found that the CDR1 gene, encoding the main drug efflux pump in C. glabrata, is highly overexpressed in the FLC-resistant isolates, but not in the FLC-sensitive P7-3. In addition, the resistance to FLC observed in these isolates is dependent on the PDR1 gene. Additionally, we found that all P7 isolates have a different proportion of cell wall carbohydrates compared to our standard strains CBS138 and BG14. In P7 isolates, mannan is the most abundant cell wall component, whereas ß-glucan is the most abundant component in our standard strains. Consistently, all P7 isolates have a relatively low cell wall porosity compared to our standard strains. These data show phenotypic and genotypic variability between clonal isolates from different niches within a single host, suggesting microevolution of C. glabrata during an infection.

Functional adaptation of the infant craniofacial system to mechanical loadings arising from masticatory forces.

The morphology and biomechanics of infant crania undergo significant changes between the pre- and post-weaning phases due to increasing loading of the masticatory system. The aims of this study were to characterize the changes in muscle forces, bite forces and the pattern of mechanical strain and stress arising from the aforementioned forces across crania in the first 48 months of life using imaging and finite element methods. A total of 51 head computed tomography scans of normal individuals were collected and analysed from a larger database of 217 individuals. The estimated mean muscle forces of temporalis, masseter and medial pterygoid increase from 30.9 to 87.0 N, 25.6 to 69.6 N and 23.1 to 58.9 N, respectively (0-48 months). Maximum bite force increases from 90.5 to 184.2 N (3-48 months). There is a change in the pattern of strain and stress from the calvaria to the face during postnatal development. Overall, this study highlights the changes in the mechanics of the craniofacial system during normal development. It further raises questions as to how and what level of changes in the mechanical forces during the development can alter the morphology of the craniofacial system.

Response of the root anatomical structure of Carex moorcroftii to habitat drought in the Western Sichuan Plateau of China.

MAIN CONCLUSION: The anatomical structures of Carex moorcroftii roots showing stronger plasticity during drought had a lower coefficient of variation in cell size in the same habitats, while those showing weaker plasticity had a higher coefficient of variation. The complementary relationship between these factors comprises the adaptation mechanism of the C. moorcroftii root to drought. To explore the effects of habitat drought on root anatomy of hygrophytic plants, this study focused on roots of C. moorcroftii. Five sample plots were set up along a soil moisture gradient in the Western Sichuan Plateau to collect experimental materials. Paraffin sectioning was used to obtain root anatomy, and one-way ANOVA, correlation analysis, linear regression analysis, and RDA ranking were applied to analyze the relationship between root anatomy and soil water content. The results showed that the root transverse section area, thickness of epidermal cells, exodermis and Casparian strips, and area of aerenchyma were significantly and positively correlated with soil moisture content (P < 0.01). The diameter of the vascular cylinder and the number and total area of vessels were significantly and negatively correlated with the soil moisture content (P < 0.01). The plasticity of the anatomical structures was strong for the diameter and area of the vascular cylinder and thickness of the Casparian strip and epidermis, while it was weak for vessel diameter and area. In addition, there was an asymmetrical relationship between the functional adaptation of root anatomical structure in different soil moisture and the variation degree of root anatomical structure in the same soil moisture. Therefore, the roots of C. moorcroftii can shorten the water transport distance from the epidermis to the vascular cylinder, increase the area of the vascular cylinder and the number of vessels, and establish a complementary relationship between the functional adaptation of root anatomical structure in different habitats and the variation degree of root anatomical structure in the same habitat to adapt to habitat drought. This study provides a scientific basis for understanding the response of plateau wetland plants to habitat changes and their ecological adaptation strategies. More scientific experimental methods should be adopted to further study the mutual coordination mechanisms of different anatomical structures during root adaptation to habitat drought for hygrophytic plants.

Identifying the kind behind SMILES-anatomical therapeutic chemical classification using structure-only representations.

Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification for compounds/drugs plays an important role in drug development and basic research. However, previous methods depend on interactions extracted from STITCH dataset which may make it depend on lab experiments. We present a pilot study to explore the possibility of conducting the ATC prediction solely based on the molecular structures. The motivation is to eliminate the reliance on the costly lab experiments so that the characteristics of a drug can be pre-assessed for better decision-making and effort-saving before the actual development. To this end, we construct a new benchmark consisting of 4545 compounds which is with larger scale than the one used in previous study. A light-weight prediction model is proposed. The model is with better explainability in the sense that it is consists of a straightforward tokenization that extracts and embeds statistically and physicochemically meaningful tokens, and a deep network backed by a set of pyramid kernels to capture multi-resolution chemical structural characteristics. Its efficacy has been validated in the experiments where it outperforms the state-of-the-art methods by 15.53% in accuracy and by 69.66% in terms of efficiency. We make the benchmark dataset, source code and web server open to ease the reproduction of this study.

Resolution enhancement, noise suppression, and joint T2* decay estimation in dual-echo sodium-23 MR imaging using anatomically guided reconstruction.

PURPOSE: Sodium MRI is challenging because of the low tissue concentration of the 23 Na nucleus and its extremely fast biexponential transverse relaxation rate. In this article, we present an iterative reconstruction framework using dual-echo 23 Na data and exploiting anatomical prior information (AGR) from high-resolution, low-noise, 1 H MR images. This framework enables the estimation and modeling of the spatially varying signal decay due to transverse relaxation during readout (AGRdm), which leads to images of better resolution and reduced noise resulting in improved quantification of the reconstructed 23 Na images. METHODS: The proposed framework was evaluated using reconstructions of 30 noise realizations of realistic simulations of dual echo twisted projection imaging (TPI) 23 Na data. Moreover, three dual echo 23 Na TPI brain datasets of healthy controls acquired on a 3T Siemens Prisma system were reconstructed using conventional reconstruction, AGR and AGRdm. RESULTS: Our simulations show that compared to conventional reconstructions, AGR and AGRdm show improved bias-noise characteristics in several regions of the brain. Moreover, AGR and AGRdm images show more anatomical detail and less noise in the reconstructions of the experimental data sets. Compared to AGR and the conventional reconstruction, AGRdm shows higher contrast in the sodium concentration ratio between gray and white matter and between gray matter and the brain stem. CONCLUSION: AGR and AGRdm generate 23 Na images with high resolution, high levels of anatomical detail, and low levels of noise, potentially enabling high-quality 23 Na MR imaging at 3T.

High-resolution anatomical imaging of the fetal brain with a reduced field of view using outer volume suppression.

PURPOSE: To achieve high-resolution fetal brain anatomical imaging without introducing image artifacts by reducing the FOV, and to demonstrate improved image quality compared to conventional full-FOV fetal brain imaging. METHODS: Reduced FOV was achieved by applying outer volume suppression (OVS) pulses immediately prior to standard single-shot fast spin echo (SSFSE) imaging. In the OVS preparation, a saturation RF pulse followed by a gradient spoiler was repeated three times with optimized flip-angle weightings and a variable spoiler scheme to enhance signal suppression. Simulations and phantom and in-vivo experiments were performed to evaluate OVS performance. In-vivo high-resolution SSFSE images acquired using the proposed approach were compared with conventional and high-resolution SSFSE images with a full FOV, using image quality scores assessed by neuroradiologists and calculated image metrics. RESULTS: Excellent signal suppression in the saturation bands was confirmed in phantom and in-vivo experiments. High-resolution SSFSE images with a reduced FOV acquired using OVS demonstrated the improved depiction of brain structures without significant motion and blurring artifacts. The proposed method showed the highest image quality scores in the criteria of sharpness, contrast, and artifact and was selected as the best method based on overall image quality. The calculated image sharpness and tissue contrast ratio were also the highest with the proposed method. CONCLUSION: High-resolution fetal brain anatomical images acquired using a reduced FOV with OVS demonstrated improved image quality both qualitatively and quantitatively, suggesting the potential for enhanced diagnostic accuracy in detecting fetal brain abnormalities in utero.

Leaf and twig traits predict habitat adaptation and demographic strategies in tropical freshwater swamp forest trees.

Differences in demographic and environmental niches facilitate plant species coexistence in tropical forests. However, the adaptations that enable species to achieve higher demographic rates (e.g. growth or survival) or occupy unique environmental niches (e.g. waterlogged conditions) remain poorly understood. Anatomical traits may better predict plant environmental and demographic strategies because they are direct measurements of structures involved in these adaptations. We collected 18 leaf and twig traits from 29 tree species in a tropical freshwater swamp forest in Singapore. We estimated demographic parameters of the 29 species from growth and survival models, and degree of association toward swamp habitats. We examined pairwise trait-trait, trait-demography and trait-environment links while controlling for phylogeny. Leaf and twig anatomical traits were better predictors of all demographic parameters than other commonly measured leaf and wood traits. Plants with wider vessels had faster growth rates but lower survival rates. Leaf and spongy mesophyll thickness predicted swamp association. These findings demonstrate the utility of anatomical traits as indicators of plant hydraulic strategies and their links to growth-mortality trade-offs and waterlogging stress tolerance that underlie species coexistence mechanisms in tropical forest trees.

Extent and Boundaries of Lymph Node Stations During Minimally Invasive Esophagectomy: A Survey Among Dutch Esophageal Surgeons.

BACKGROUND: The optimal extent of lymph node dissection (LND) and the anatomic boundaries per lymph node station (LNS) during minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) for esophageal cancer remain a topic of debate. This study investigated the opinion of Dutch esophageal cancer surgeons on their routine LND extent and anatomic boundaries per LNS during MIE. METHODS: In April 2023, an English web-based cross-sectional survey was conducted. In each of the 15 Dutch hospitals performing MIE, two MIE surgeons were asked to participate. The routine LND extent (quantity, specific LNS) for distal esophageal adenocarcinoma, (dis)agreement with the TIGER definition, and anatomic boundaries for each LNS in six directions were queried. RESULTS: The survey was completed by 24 Dutch MIE surgeons (80% response rate). Consensus on the routine LND extent ( ≥ 85% of the participating surgeons) included the left and right paracardial, left gastric artery, celiac trunk, proximal splenic artery, common hepatic artery, subcarinal middle mediastinal paraoesophageal, lower mediastinal paraoesophageal, pulmonary ligament, and upper mediastinal paraoesophageal LNSs. Other LNSs were not widely considered routine. Although, certain anatomic boundaries were consistent among the surgeons, the majority varied, even when they agreed on the TIGER definition. CONCLUSION: Significant variations in surgical practice among Dutch esophageal surgeons regarding their routine extent of LND and anatomic boundaries of LNSs during MIE were demonstrated. Variation may have an impact on clinical outcomes, hampering uniform treatment strategies and hindering comparison of performance assessments. This study highlighted the need for an international follow-up study toward one uniform defined LND during MIE for esophageal cancer.

Effects of different light conditions on morphological, anatomical, photosynthetic and biochemical parameters of Cypripedium macranthos Sw.

In this study, the morphological (plant height, leaf length and width, stem diameter and leaf number), anatomical (epidermal cell density and thickness, Stomatal length and width), photosynthetic (net photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance, intercellular CO2 concentration, relative humidity, leaf temperature and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters) and biochemical parameters (the content of soluble sugar, soluble protein, proline, malondialdehyde and electrical conductivity) of Cypripedium macranthos Sw. in Changbai Mountain were determined under different light conditions (L10, L30, L50, L100). The results showed that morphological values including plant height, leaf area, stem diameter and leaf number of C. macranthos were smaller under the condition of full light at L100. The epidermal cell density and epidermal thickness of C. macranthos were the highest under L30 and L50 treatments, respectively. It had the highest net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and chlorophyll content under L50 treatment. Meanwhile, correlation analysis indicated that photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and water use efficiency (WUE) were the main factors influencing Pn. C. macranthos accumulated more soluble sugars and soluble proteins under L100 treatment, while the degree of membrane peroxidation was the highest and the plant was severely damaged. In summary, the adaptability of C. macranthos to light conditions is ranked as follows L50 > L30 > L10 > L100. Appropriate light conditions for C. macranthos are 30%-50% of full light, which should be taken into account in protection and cultivation.

Indocyanine Green Fluorescence-Guided Laparoscopic Anatomical Segmentectomy of Liver Segment 6: Surgical Strategy and Technical Details.

BACKGROUND: Because of the complex anatomy of the right posterior hepatic pedicle, there have been few reports on standardized laparoscopic portal territory staining-guided anatomical resection of liver segment 6 (LPTAR-S6). This study aimed to elucidate the indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence staining methods for LPTAR-S6. PATIENTS AND METHODS: LPTAR-S6 can be performed using positive and negative fluorescence staining approaches. We implemented these two approaches for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Descriptions of the surgical strategy and technical details are presented. RESULTS: Two patients safely underwent LPTAR-S6 using a preoperative three-dimensional reconstruction plan. The intraoperative ICG fluorescence staining effect was satisfactory, and the anatomical landmarks were fully exposed. CONCLUSIONS: A detailed preoperative three-dimensional reconstruction plan, complete intraoperative application of real-time laparoscopic ultrasound guidance, and ICG fluorescence staining can result in accurate transection of the liver parenchyma during LPTAR-S6.

Initial clinical experience of atrial fibrillation ablation guided by a cryoballoon-compatible, magnetic-based circular catheter.

INTRODUCTION: The circular catheter compatible with current cryoballoon system for atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation is exclusively sensed by impedance-based electro-anatomical mapping (EAM) system, limiting the accuracy of maps. We aim to investigate the feasibility and safety of a magnetic-based circular mapping catheter for AF ablation with cryoballoon. METHODS: Nineteen consecutive patients who underwent pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) with cryoballoon for paroxysmal or persistent AF were included. EAMs of left atrium (LA) created by the LASSOSTAR™NAV catheter (Lassostar map) before and after PVI were compared to that generated by a high-density mapping catheter (Pentaray map) from different aspects including structural similarity, PV angle, LA posterior wall (LAPW) and low voltage areas (LVAs), and the amplitude of far field electrograms (FFEs) recorded by catheters. RESULTS: All patients had successful PVI without major complications. With similar mapping time and density, the LA volume calculated from the Pentaray map and Lassostar map were comparable. There were no significant differences in PV angle of all PVs and PW area (16.8 ± 3.2 vs. 17.1 ± 2.8, p = .516) between Pentaray map and Lassostar map. High structural similarity score was observed between two maps (0.783 in RAO/LAO view and 0.791 in PA view). Lassostar map detected lesser but not statistically significant extension of LVA (13.9% vs. 18.3%, p = .07). Amplitude of FFE was larger at the right superior PV on Lassostar map (0.21 ± 0.16 vs. 0.14 ± 0.11 mV, p = .041) compared to that on the Pentaray map. CONCLUSION: In our initial experience, PVI with cryoballoon and magnetic-based circular LASSOSTAR™NAV catheter was safe and effective based on the accurate LA geometry it created.

Quantitative anatomy of the large variant right hepatic vein: A systematic three-dimensional analysis.

Anatomical variations of the right hepatic vein, especially large variant right hepatic veins (≥5 mm), have important clinical implications in liver transplantation and resection. This study aimed to evaluate anatomical variations of the right hepatic vein using quantitative three-dimensional visualization analysis. Computed tomography images of 650 patients were retrospectively analyzed, and three-dimensional visualization was applied using the derived data to analyze large variant right hepatic veins. The proportion of the large variant right hepatic vein was 16.92% (110/650). According to the location and number of the variant right hepatic veins, the configuration of the right hepatic venous system was divided into seven subtypes. The length of the retrohepatic inferior vena cava had a positive correlation with the diameter of the right hepatic vein (rs = 0.266, p = 0.001) and the variant right hepatic veins (rs = 0.211, p = 0.027). The diameter of the right hepatic vein was positively correlated with that of the middle hepatic vein (rs = 0.361, p < 0.001), while it was inversely correlated with that of the variant right hepatic veins (rs = -0.267, p = 0.005). The right hepatic vein diameter was positively correlated with the drainage volume (rs = 0.489, p < 0.001), while the correlation with the variant right hepatic veins drainage volume was negative (rs = -0.460, p < 0.001). The number of the variant right hepatic veins and their relative diameters were positively correlated (p < 0.001). The volume and percentage of the drainage area of the right hepatic vein decreased significantly as the number of the variant right hepatic vein increased (p < 0.001). The findings of this study concerning the variations of the hepatic venous system may be useful for the surgical planning of liver resection or transplantation.