Decrease in walking ability with increased functional connectivity between multiple brain areas in Parkinson's disease: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.

Introduction: Gait disturbances significantly impact the mobility and quality of life of individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). This study aims to delve into the cortical mechanisms underlying gait disorders in PD, specifically focusing on the prefrontal cortex (PFC), premotor cortex (PMC), and primary somatosensory cortex (PSC).

Objective: To compare the functional connectivity of the PFC, PMC, and PSC regions during walking between individuals with PD and healthy controls.

A Knowledge-Driven Framework Discovers Brain ACtivation-Transition-Spectrum (ACTS) Features for Parkinson's Disease.

Dopaminergic treatment has proved effective to Parkinson's disease (PD), but the conventional treatment assessment is human-administered and prone to intra- and inter-assessor variability. In this paper, we propose a knowledge-driven framework and discover that brain ACtivation-Transition-Spectrum (ACTS) features achieve effective quantified assessments of dopaminergic therapy in PD. Firstly, brain activities of fifty-one PD patients during clinical walking tests under the OFF and ON states (without and with dopaminergic medication) were measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

A Bimetallic Electro-Sensitizer Improves ROS Therapy by Relieving Autophagy-Induced ROS Tolerance and Immune Suppression.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS)-dependent monotherapy usually demonstrates poor therapeutic outcomes, due to the accompanied activation of protective autophagy in tumor cells, which results in ROS tolerance and immune suppression. In this study, a bimetallic electro-sensitizer, Pt-Ir NPs is constructed, loaded with the autophagy inhibitor chloroquine (Pt-Ir-CQ NPs), to enhance the effectiveness of electrotherapy by inhibiting autophagy and activating anti-tumor immune responses. This novel electrotherapy platform demonstrates unique advantages, particularly in the treatment of hypoxic and immunosuppressive tumors.

Orally Administrated Hydrogel Harnessing Intratumoral Microbiome and Microbiota-Related Immune Responses for Potentiated Colorectal Cancer Treatment.

The intestinal and intratumoral microbiota are closely associated with tumor progression and response to antitumor treatments. The antibacterial or tumor microenvironment (TME)-modulating approaches have been shown to markedly improve antitumor efficacy, strategies focused on normalizing the microbial environment are rarely reported. Here, we reported the development of an orally administered inulin-based hydrogel with colon-targeting and retention effects, containing hollow MnO nanocarrier loaded with the chemotherapeutic drug Oxa (Oxa@HMI).

A dynamic brain network decomposition method discovers effective brain hemodynamic sub-networks for Parkinson's disease.

Dopaminergic treatment is effective for Parkinson's disease (PD). Nevertheless, the conventional treatment assessment mainly focuses on human-administered behavior examination while the underlying functional improvements have not been well explored. This paper aims to investigate brain functional variations of PD patients after dopaminergic therapy.

Brain Temporal-Spectral Functional Variability Reveals Neural Improvements of DBS Treatment for Disorders of Consciousness.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is establishing itself as a promising treatment for disorders of consciousness (DOC). Measuring consciousness changes is crucial in the optimization of DBS therapy for DOC patients. However, conventional measures use subjective metrics that limit the investigations of treatment-induced neural improvements.

Subject-Specific Modeling of EEG-fNIRS Neurovascular Coupling by Task-Related Tensor Decomposition.

Neurovascular coupling (NVC) connects neural activity with hemodynamics and plays a vital role in sustaining brain function. Combining electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a promising way to explore the NVC. However, the high-order property of EEG data and variability of hemodynamic response function (HRF) across subjects have not been well considered in existing NVC studies.

Effective DBS treatment improves neural information transmission of patients with disorders of consciousness: an fNIRS study.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a potential treatment that promotes the recovery of patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). This study quantified the changes in consciousness and the neuromodulation effect of DBS on patients with DOC.Eleven patients were recruited for this study which consists of three conditions: 'Pre' (two days before DBS surgery), 'Post-On' (one month after surgery with stimulation), and 'Post-Off' (one month after surgery without stimulation).

fNIRS-based graph frequency analysis to identify mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease.

Background: Early identification of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is essential for its treatment and the prevention of dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD). Existing approaches are mostly based on neuropsychological assessments, while brain activation and connection have not been well considered.

New Method: This paper presents a neuroimaging-based graph frequency analysis method and the generated features to quantify the brain functional neurodegeneration and distinguish between PD-MCI patients and healthy controls.

An EEG-fNIRS neurovascular coupling analysis method to investigate cognitive-motor interference.

Background And Objective: The simultaneous execution of a motor and cognitive dual task may lead to the deterioration of task performance in one or both tasks due to cognitive-motor interference (CMI). Neuroimaging techniques are promising ways to reveal the underlying neural mechanism of CMI. However, existing studies have only explored CMI from a single neuroimaging modality, which lack built-in validation and comparison of analysis results.

An fNIRS-Based Dynamic Functional Connectivity Analysis Method to Signify Functional Neurodegeneration of Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a prevalent brain disorder, and PD diagnosis is crucial for treatment. Existing methods for PD diagnosis are mainly focused on behavior analysis, while the functional neurodegeneration of PD has not been well investigated. This paper proposes a method to signify functional neurodegeneration of PD with dynamic functional connectivity analysis.

Increased Effective Connectivity of the Left Parietal Lobe During Walking Tasks in Parkinson's Disease.

Background: In Parkinson's disease (PD), walking may depend on the activation of the cerebral cortex. Understanding the patterns of interaction between cortical regions during walking tasks is of great importance.

Objective: This study investigated differences in the effective connectivity (EC) of the cerebral cortex during walking tasks in individuals with PD and healthy controls.

fNIRS-based functional connectivity signifies recovery in patients with disorders of consciousness after DBS treatment.

Objective: While deep brain stimulation (DBS) has proved effective for certain patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC), the working neural mechanism is not clear, the response varies for patients, and the assessment is inadequate. This paper aims to quantify the DBS-induced changes of consciousness in DOC patients at the neural functional level.

Methods: Ten DOC patients were included for DBS surgery.

Fronto-parietal cortex activation during walking in patients with Parkinson's disease adopting different postural strategies.

Background: Cortical activation patterns in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) may be influenced by postural strategies, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. Our aim is to examine the role of the fronto-parietal lobes in patients with PD adopting different postural strategies and the effect of dual task (DT) on fronto-parietal activation.

Methods: Two groups of patients with PD adopting either the posture first strategy (PD-PF) or the posture second strategy (PD-PS) were examined respectively when in the "OFF" state while single-walking task (SW) and DT.

fNIRS-based brain state transition features to signify functional degeneration after Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative brain disorder, and early diagnosis is of vital importance for treatment. Existing methods are mainly focused on behavior examination, while the functional neurodegeneration after PD has not been well explored. This paper aims to investigate the brain functional variation of PD patients in comparison with healthy controls.

CXCR4-guided liposomes regulating hypoxic and immunosuppressive microenvironment for sorafenib-resistant tumor treatment.

Clinical sorafenib treatment could activate C-X-C receptor type 4 (CXCR4)/stromal source factor-1α (SDF-1α) axis to aggravate intra-tumoral hypoxia of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which further leads to progression, invasion, metastasis, and immunosuppression of tumors and in return causes resistance to sorafenib therapy. Therefore, a multi-functional oxygen delivery nanoplatform was rationally constructed based on an oxygen-saturated perfluorohexane (PFH)-cored liposome, with the CXCR4 antagonist LFC131 peptides modifying on the surface to simultaneously deliver sorafenib and the CSF1/CSF1R inhibitor PLX3397 (named PFH@LSLP) for sorafenib-resistant HCC treatment. The PFH@LSLP was developed to overcome sorafenib resistance by synergistic effects of the following 3 roles: 1) the O-saturated PFH core could alleviate the tumor hypoxia by O supply; 2) the LFC131 peptide recognized the hypoxia-related overexpressed CXCR4 and then blocked SDF-1α/CXCR4 axis to re-sensitize the HCC cells to sorafenib; 3) PLX3397 activated the immune responses via inhibiting the CSF1/CSF1R pathway in TAMs, further enhanced CD8 T cell infiltration to reverse immunosuppression in tumors.

Quantified assessment of deep brain stimulation on Parkinson's patients with task fNIRS measurements and functional connectivity analysis: a pilot study.

Background: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has proved effective for Parkinson's disease (PD), but the identification of stimulation parameters relies on doctors' subjective judgment on patient behavior.

Methods: Five PD patients performed 10-meter walking tasks under different brain stimulation frequencies. During walking tests, a wearable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) system was used to measure the concentration change of oxygenated hemoglobin (△HbO) in prefrontal cortex, parietal lobe and occipital lobe.