H-Dots: Renal Clearable Zwitterionic Nanocarriers for Disease Diagnosis and Therapy.

Nanocarriers have shown significant promise in the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases, utilizing a wide range of biocompatible materials such as metals, inorganic substances, and organic components. Despite diverse design strategies, key physicochemical properties, including hydrodynamic diameter, shape, surface charge, and hydrophilicity/lipophilicity, are crucial for optimizing biodistribution, pharmacokinetics, and therapeutic efficacy. However, these properties are often influenced by drug payload, presenting an ongoing challenge in developing versatile platform technologies for theranostics.

Neurophysiological correlates of ketamine-induced dissociative state in bipolar disorder: insights from real-world clinical settings.

Ketamine, a dissociative compound, shows promise in treating mood disorders, including treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and bipolar disorder (BD). Despite its therapeutic potential, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying ketamine's effects are not fully understood. This study explored acute neurophysiological changes induced by subanesthetic doses of ketamine in BD patients with depression using electroencephalography (EEG) biomarkers.

Preliminary Evidence for Perturbation-Based tACS-EEG Biomarkers of Gamma Activity in Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by impaired inhibitory circuitry and GABAergic dysfunction, which is associated with reduced fast brain oscillations in the gamma band (γ, 30-90 Hz) in several animal models. Investigating such activity in human patients could lead to the identification of novel biomarkers of diagnostic and prognostic value. The current study aimed to test a multimodal "Perturbation-based" transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation-Electroencephalography (tACS)-EEG protocol to detect how responses to tACS in AD patients correlate with patients' clinical phenotype.

Selective Mu-Opioid Receptor Imaging Using F-Labeled Carfentanils.

Carfentanil, a highly potent synthetic opioid, paradoxically serves as a crucial positron emission tomography (PET) imaging tool in neurobiological studies of the mu-opioid receptor (MOR) system when labeled with carbon-11 ([C]CFN). However, its clinical research use is hindered by extreme potency and the limited availability of short-lived carbon-11 ( = 20.4 min).

Bio-Orchestration of Cellular Organization and Human-Preferred Sensory Texture in Cultured Meat.

For cultured meat to effectively replace traditional meat, it is essential to develop scaffolds that replicate key attributes of real meat, such as taste, nutrition, flavor, and texture. However, one of the significant challenges in replicating meat characteristics with scaffolds lies in the considerable gap between the stiffness preferred by cells and the textural properties desired by humans. To address this issue, we focused on the microscale environment conducive to cell growth and the macro-scale properties favored by humans.

Indocyanine Blue (ICB) as a Functional Alternative to Indocyanine Green (ICG) for Enhanced 700 nm NIR Imaging.

Despite significant advancements in bioimaging technology, only a limited number of fluorophores are currently approved for clinical applications. Indocyanine green (ICG) is the first FDA-approved near-infrared (NIR) fluorophore and has significantly advanced clinical interventions over the past three decades. However, its single-channel imaging at 800 nm emission is often insufficient for capturing comprehensive diagnostic information during surgery.

Stepwise pathways from the olfactory cortex to central hub regions in the human brain.

The human brain is organized as a hierarchical global network. Functional connectivity research reveals that sensory cortices are connected to corresponding association cortices via a series of intermediate nodes linked by synchronous neural activity. These sensory pathways and relay stations converge onto central cortical hubs such as the default-mode network (DMN).

The emerging field of non-invasive brain stimulation in Alzheimer's disease.

Treating cognitive impairment is a holy grail of modern clinical neuroscience. In the past few years, non-invasive brain stimulation is increasingly emerging as a therapeutic approach to ameliorate performance in patients with cognitive impairment and as an augmentation approach in persons whose cognitive performance is within normal limits. In patients with Alzheimer's disease, better understanding of brain connectivity and function has allowed for the development of different non-invasive brain stimulation protocols.

Altered Neural Processing of Interoception in Patients With Functional Neurological Disorder: A Task-Based fMRI Study.

Objective: Research suggests that disrupted interoception contributes to the development and maintenance of functional neurological disorder (FND); however, no functional neuroimaging studies have examined the processing of interoceptive signals in patients with FND.

Methods: The authors examined univariate and multivariate functional MRI neural responses of 38 patients with mixed FND and 38 healthy control individuals (HCs) during a task exploring goal-directed attention to cardiac interoception-versus-control (exteroception or rest) conditions. The relationships between interoception-related neural responses, heartbeat-counting accuracy, and interoceptive trait prediction error (ITPE) were also investigated for FND patients.

Effects of List-Mode-Based Intraframe Motion Correction in Dynamic Brain PET Imaging.

Motion is unavoidable in dynamic [F]-MK6240 Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging, especially in Alzheimer's disease (AD) research requiring long scan duration. To understand how motion correction affects quantitative analysis, we investigated two approaches: II-MC, which corrects for both inter-frame and intra-frame motion, and IO-MC, which only corrects for inter-frame motion. These methods were applied to 83 scans from 34 subjects, and we calculated distribution volume ratios (DVR) using the multilinear reference tissue model with two parameters (MRTM2) in tau-rich brain regions.

Synthesis and mechanistic investigation of BPA fluorescent probes targeting BPA for potential application in Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT).

Boronic acid analogs are crucial in modern organic chemistry and drug development, serving as versatile reagents and intermediates with significant therapeutic applications. This area has gained increased interest with the recent development of the drug 4-boron-L-phenylalanine (L-BPA) for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). Fluorescent probe technology offers an essential pathway for imaging drugs in vitro and in vivo, providing high sensitivity with great spatial and temporal resolution for both disease diagnosis and drug development.

Anodal tDCS improves neuromuscular adaptations to short-term resistance training of the knee extensors in healthy individuals.

Experimental studies show improvement in physical performance following acute application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). This study examined the neuromuscular and neural responses to a single training session () and following a 3 wk resistance training program () performed with the knee extensors, preceded by tDCS over the primary motor cortex. Twenty-four participants (age, 30 ± 7 yr; stature, 172 ± 8 cm; mass, 72 ± 15 kg) were randomly allocated to perform either resistance training with anodal tDCS (a-tDCS) or a placebo tDCS (Sham).

Treatment-wise Glioblastoma Survival Inference with Multi-parametric Preoperative MRI.

In this work, we aim to predict the survival time (ST) of glioblastoma (GBM) patients undergoing different treatments based on preoperative magnetic resonance (MR) scans. The personalized and precise treatment planning can be achieved by comparing the ST of different treatments. It is well established that both the current status of the patient (as represented by the MR scans) and the choice of treatment are the cause of ST.

Free-breathing 3D cardiac extracellular volume (ECV) mapping using a linear tangent space alignment (LTSA) model.

Purpose: To develop a new method for free-breathing 3D extracellular volume (ECV) mapping of the whole heart at 3 T.

Methods: A free-breathing 3D cardiac ECV mapping method was developed at 3 T. T mapping was performed before and after contrast agent injection using a free-breathing electrocardiogram-gated inversion recovery sequence with spoiled gradient echo readout.

Therapeutic Potentials of Near-Infrared II Photobiomodulation to Treat Cerebrovascular Diseases via Nitric Oxide Signalling.

Endothelial dysfunction featuring insufficient endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and accompanying nitric oxide (NO) deficiency is implicated in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. Restoring endothelial NO represents a promising approach to treating cerebrovascular diseases, including stroke. Low-power near-infrared (NIR) light shows diverse beneficial effects, broadly defined as photobiomodulation (PBM).

Multimodal evidence for cerebellar influence on cortical development in autism: structural growth amidst functional disruption.

Despite perinatal damage to the cerebellum being one of the highest risk factors for later being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it is not yet clear how the cerebellum might influence the development of cerebral cortex and whether this co-developmental process is distinct between neurotypical and ASD children. Leveraging a large structural brain MRI dataset of neurotypical children and those diagnosed with ASD, we examined whether structural variation in cerebellar tissue across individuals was correlated with neocortical variation during development, including the thalamus as a coupling factor. We found that the thalamus plays a distinct role in moderating cerebro-cerebellar structural coordination in ASD.

Erratum to "Bifunctional Tumor-Targeted Bioprobe for Phototheranosis".

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.34133/bmr.0002.

Reduction of cognitive fatigue and improved performance at a VR-based driving simulator using tRNS.

Cognitive fatigue (CF) increases accident risk reducing performance, especially during complex tasks such as driving. We evaluated whether transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) could mitigate CF and improve driving performance. In a double-blind study, thirty participants performed a virtual reality truck driving task during real ( = 15) or sham ( = 15) tRNS applied bilaterally on the "anti-fatigue network".

The role of parvalbumin interneuron dysfunction across neurodegenerative dementias.

Parvalbumin-positive (PV+) basket neurons are fast-spiking, non-adapting inhibitory interneurons whose oscillatory activity is essential for regulating cortical excitation/inhibition balance. Their dysfunction results in cortical hyperexcitability and gamma rhythm disruption, which have recently gained substantial traction as contributing factors as well as potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Recent evidence indicates that PV+ cells are also impaired in Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).

Target engagement of the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex with transcranial temporal interference stimulation in major depressive disorder: a protocol for a randomized sham-controlled trial.

Background: Transcranial temporal interference stimulation (tTIS) is a new, emerging neurostimulation technology that utilizes two or more electric fields at specific frequencies to modulate the oscillations of neurons at a desired spatial location in the brain. The physics of tTIS offers the advantage of modulating deep brain structures in a non-invasive fashion and with minimal stimulation of the overlying cortex outside of a selected target. As such, tTIS can be effectively employed in the context of therapeutics for the psychiatric disease of disrupted brain connectivity, such as major depressive disorder (MDD).

Investigating muscle coordination patterns with Granger causality analysis in protrusive motion from tagged and diffusion MRI.

The human tongue exhibits an orchestrated arrangement of internal muscles, working in sequential order to execute tongue movements. Understanding the muscle coordination patterns involved in tongue protrusive motion is crucial for advancing knowledge of tongue structure and function. To achieve this, this work focuses on five muscles known to contribute to protrusive motion.