Examining the effectiveness of motor imagery combined with non-invasive brain stimulation for upper limb recovery in stroke patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.

Background: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) are common non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) methods for functional recovery after stroke. Motor imagery (MI) can be used in the rehabilitation of limb motor function after stroke, but its effectiveness remains to be rigorously established. Furthermore, there is a growing interest in the combined application of NIBS with MI, yet the evidence regarding its impact on the recovery of upper limb function after stroke is inconclusive.

Effective Antitumor Synergistic Treatment with Fiber-Photothermal Therapy and Heat Shock Protein Inhibitors.

Effective treatment of malignant tumors remains a thorny issue in current medicine. As a new type of anticancer strategy, photothermal therapy (PTT) has attracted tremendous attention due to its favorable therapeutic effectiveness, high spatial-temporal controllability, and low occurrence of side effects. However, the efficacy of PTT is significantly reduced due to the limited penetration of light and heat-induced overexpression of heat shock protein (Hsp).

Fiber-optic drug delivery strategy for synergistic cancer photothermal-chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy is one of the conventional treatments for cancer in clinical practice. However, poor delivery efficiency, systemic toxicity, and the lack of pharmacokinetic monitoring during treatment are the critical limitations of current chemotherapy. Herein, we reported a brand-new antitumor drug delivery strategy that harnesses an optical fiber endoscopically therapeutic probe.

A capillary-aided microfiber Bragg grating pH sensor for hydrovoltaic technology.

Hydrovoltaic is an emerging technology that aims to harvest energy from water flow and evaporation, in which the plasmonic hydrogen ions are generated by the interaction between water and hydrovoltaic device. However, the volume of the water sample for the interaction is usually ultra-small due to the compact size of hydrovoltaic device, making the quantification and characterization of the hydrogen ions in such water sample an elusive goal. To address this issue, a miniature fiber-optic pH probe is proposed using a unilaterally tapered-microfiber Bragg grating.

Near-infrared microfiber Bragg grating for sensitive measurement of tension and bending.

Fiber-optic devices working in the visible and near-infrared windows are attracting attention due to the rapid development of biomedicine that involves optics. In this work, we have successfully realized the fabrication of near-infrared microfiber Bragg grating (NIR-µFBG), which was operated at the wavelength of 785 nm, by harnessing the fourth harmonic order of Bragg resonance. The NIR-µFBG provided the maximum sensitivity of axial tension and bending to 211 nm/N and 0.

Surface-wettable nonenzymatic fiber-optic sensor for selective detection of hydrogen peroxide.

A micro-nanostructure-based surface-modified fiber-optic sensor has been developed herein to selectively detect hydrogen peroxide (HO). In our design, phenylboronic ester-modified polymers were used as a modified cladding medium that allows chemo-optic transduction. Sensing is mechanistically based on oxidation and subsequent hydrolysis of the phenylboronic ester-modified polymer, which modulates hydrophobic properties of fiber-optic devices, which was confirmed during characterization of the chemical functional group and hydrophobicity of the active sensing material.