Publications by authors named "Jingru Hao"

Background: Surgery can induce severe neuroinflammation and negative emotional symptoms, such as anxiety-like behaviour. We studied whether reactive astrocytes in the zona incerta (ZI) mediate surgery-induced anxiety in mice.

Methods: Laparotomy under isoflurane 1.

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Major depressive disorder (MDD) is recognized as the most prevalent affective disorder worldwide. Metagenomic studies increasingly support a critical role for dysbiosis of gut microbiota in the development of depression. Previous studies have demonstrated that adenosine alleviates gut dysbiosis, suggesting that elevating adenosine levels could be a novel intervention for MDD; however, the mechanisms underlying this effect remain unclear.

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In plant environments, there exist heterogeneous microbial communities, referred to as the plant microbiota, which are recruited by plants and play crucial roles in promoting plant growth, aiding in resistance against pathogens and environmental stresses, thereby maintaining plant health. These microorganisms, along with their genomes, collectively form the plant microbiome. Research on the plant microbiome can help unravel the intricate interactions between plants and microbes, providing a theoretical foundation to reduce pesticide use, enhance agricultural productivity, and promote environmental sustainability.

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  • Aberrant energy metabolism, particularly glycolysis in astrocytes, is identified as a significant feature in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease (AD), potentially impacting cognitive function.
  • Research shows that Aβ-activated microglia enhance astrocyte glycolysis through the AKT-mTOR-HIF-1α pathway, which contributes to cognitive deficits in early AD by disrupting synaptic functions and increasing Aβ aggregation.
  • The use of rapamycin, an mTOR inhibitor, shows promise in reversing spatial memory impairment and reducing Aβ levels by targeting the excess L-lactate produced from increased glycolysis in astrocytes, suggesting a potential therapeutic approach for AD.
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  • The study investigated the effects of exendin-4 (EX-4) on improving motor function and reducing necroptosis after spinal cord injury (SCI) in rats.
  • EX-4 was shown to enhance motor skills and limb strength while also promoting autophagy and degrading necroptosis-related proteins in both rat models and human neuron-like cells.
  • The findings suggest that EX-4 may serve as a potential new treatment strategy by inhibiting mTOR phosphorylation, which could aid recovery after SCI.
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Clinical surgery can lead to severe neuroinflammation and cognitive dysfunctions. It has been reported that astrocytes mediate memory formation and postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD), however, the thalamic mechanism of astrocytes in mediating POCD remains unknown. Here, we report that reactive astrocytes in zona incerta (ZI) mediate surgery-induced recognition memory impairment in male mice.

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Innate defensive behavior is important for animal survival. The Vglut neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) have been demonstrated to play important roles in innate defensive behaviors, but the neural circuit mechanism is still unclear. Here, we find that VTA - zona incerta (ZI) glutamatergic projection is involved in regulating innate fear responses.

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Purpose: White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are the common marker of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD). Dyslipidemia plays a notable role in the pathogenesis of CSVD. However, the relationship between dyslipidemia and WMH is poorly elucidated.

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Neuropathic pain (NP) is often accompanied by psychiatric comorbidities and currently lacks effective treatment. Prior research has shown that HDAC6 plays a crucial role in pain sensitization, but the specific mechanisms remain unclear. HDAC6 inhibitors have been found to alleviate mechanical allodynia caused by inflammation and peripheral nerve damage.

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The neural circuit mechanisms underlying postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) remain elusive. We hypothesized that projections from the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to the amygdala are involved in POCD. A mouse model of POCD in which isoflurane (1.

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Electron shuttles (ES) can mediate long-distance electron transfer between extracellular respiratory bacteria (ERB) and the surroundings. However, the effects of graphite structure in ES on the extracellular electron transfer (EET) process remain ambiguous. This work investigated the function of graphite structure in the process of nitrobenzene (NB) degradation by Geobacter sulfurreducens PCA, in which highly aromatic carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was studied as a typical ES.

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Hyperspectral imaging technology can obtain the spatial and spectral three-dimensional imaging of substances simultaneously, and obtain the unique continuous characteristic spectrum of substances in a wide spectrum range at a certain spatial resolution, which has outstanding advantages in the fine classification and identification of biological substances. With the development of hyperspectral imaging technology, a large amount of data has been accumulated in the exploration of data acquisition, image processing and material inspection. As a new technology means, hyperspectral imaging technology has its unique advantages and wide application prospects.

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Perioperative neurocognitive disorders (PND) is a common complication that occurs among elderly patients in the perioperative course. Current clinical evidence has shown that isoflurane exposure could cause cognitive decline, but the exact molecular mechanisms remain unclear. As both NMDARs-dependent synaptic plasticity and histone acetylation play vital roles in processing learning and memory, we postulated that these alternations might occur in the isoflurane-associated PND.

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  • Identifying brain abnormalities in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is crucial for early diagnosis and intervention, leading to the development of a deep learning approach called I-ResNet to analyze MRI structural features.
  • The study utilized a preschool dataset with 110 participants, a larger ABIDE dataset with 1099 participants, and a verification epilepsy dataset with 200 individuals to identify significant differences in nine brain areas between ASD and typical development (TD).
  • The I-ResNet method achieved high sensitivity (0.88 and 0.86) and varying specificity (0.75 and 0.62), demonstrating its potential as a computer-aided diagnostic tool for identifying children at risk for ASD.
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Postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) affects a substantial number of aged individuals. Although advanced age has been regarded as the only independent risk factor for cognitive decline following anesthesia and surgery, the exact cellular and molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3), an epigenetic regulator of memory plays an important role in age-dependent disease.

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This study aimed to delineate cortico-striato-thalamo-cerebellar network profiles based on static and dynamic connectivity analysis in genetic generalized and focal epilepsies with generalized tonic-clonic seizures, and to evaluate its potential for distinguishing these two epilepsy syndromes. A total of 342 individuals participated in the study (114 patients with genetic generalized epilepsy with generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GE-GTCS), and 114 age- and sex-matched patients with focal epilepsy with focal to bilateral tonic-clonic seizure (FE-FBTS), 114 healthy controls). Resting-state fMRI data were examined through static and dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) analyses, constructing cortico-striato-thalamo-cerebellar networks.

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Preliminary studies have shown the feasibility of deep learning (DL)-based super-resolution (SR) technique for reconstructing thick-slice/gap diagnostic MR images into high-resolution isotropic data, which would be of great significance for brain research field if the vast amount of diagnostic MRI data could be successively put into brain morphometric study. However, less evidence has addressed the practicability of the strategy, because lack of a large-sample available real data for constructing DL model. In this work, we employed a large cohort (n = 2052) of peculiar data with both low through-plane resolution diagnostic and high-resolution isotropic brain MR images from identical subjects.

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  • Alzheimer's disease (AD) involves harmful build-up of β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides in the brain, particularly soluble Aβ oligomers, which are linked to cognitive decline and current treatments are ineffective.
  • A study developed a new type of liposome called transferrin-Pep63-liposomes (Tf-Pep63-Lip) that targets Aβ oligomers and improves synaptic health by delivering the neuroprotective peptide Pep63 while also penetrating the blood-brain barrier.
  • Administration of Tf-Pep63-Lip showed significant reduction of Aβ levels and improved cognitive function in mice without any side effects, suggesting it could be a promising safe treatment option for Alzheimer's disease.
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Opioid relapse is generally caused by the recurrence of context-induced memory reinstatement of reward. However, the internal mechanisms that facilitate and modify these processes remain unknown. One of the key regions of the reward is the nucleus accumbens (NAc) which receives glutamatergic projections from the dorsal hippocampus CA1 (dCA1).

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Brain structural covariance network (SCN) can delineate the brain synchronized alterations in a long-range time period. It has been used in the research of cognition or neuropsychiatric disorders. Recently, causal analysis of structural covariance network (CaSCN), winner-take-all and cortex-subcortex covariance network (WTA-CSSCN), and modulation analysis of structural covariance network (MOD-SCN) have expended the technology breadth of SCN.

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Generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS) are the severest and most remarkable clinical expressions of human epilepsy. Cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar structures, organized with different network patterns, underlying the pathophysiological substrates of genetic associated epilepsy with GTCS (GE-GTCS) and focal epilepsy associated with focal to bilateral tonic-clonic seizure (FE-FBTS). Structural covariance analysis can delineate the features of epilepsy network related with long-term effects from seizure.

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Epigenetic mechanisms of learning and memory are particularly interesting topics in neuroscience that have recently been investigated. As shown in our previous study, IQGAP1, a scaffolding protein of MAPK, is involved in fear memory through interactions with GluN2A-containing NMDA receptors and the ERK1/2 cascade. However, researchers have not determined whether histone posttranslational modifications are regulated by the IQGAP1/ERK signaling pathway.

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  • * Research using mice showed that inflammation from LPS (a bacterial toxin) caused memory impairment and increased levels of HDAC2, an enzyme that regulates gene expression, affecting memory-related genes in the brain.
  • * Reducing HDAC2 levels in the hippocampus helped restore memory function, highlighting the potential for targeting HDAC2 to address cognitive issues related to inflammation.
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