Neuroscience
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A stroke, also known as cerebrovascular accident, is a medical emergency that occurs when the blood supply to the brain is interrupted. This disruption can happen in two main ways: through a hemorrhagic stroke, where a blood vessel in the brain bursts, or through an ischemic stroke, where a blood clot blocks an artery. Both types of stroke cause damage to brain cells, leading to a range of health complications. ⋯ Ongoing clinical trials in stroke management are also highlighted. Timely diagnosis and prompt intervention are critical for improving patient outcomes. We aim to increase awareness and understanding of stroke among researchers and healthcare professionals, ultimately improving patient care.
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Degenerative diseases and injuries of central nervous system (CNS) often cause nerve cell apoptosis and neural dysfunction. Protection of surviving cells or inducing the differentiation of stem cells into functional cells is considered to be an important way of neurorepair. In addition, transdifferentiation technology emerged recently is expected to provide new solutions for nerve regeneration. ⋯ The extracellular microenvironment changed dramatically upon neural lesion, exploring the biological function of signals mediated by cell surface receptors will help to develop molecular strategies for nerve regeneration. An increasing number of studies have reported that cell surface receptor-mediated signaling affects the survival, differentiation, and functioning of neural cells, and even regulate their trans-lineage reprogramming. Here, we provide a review on the roles of cell surface receptors in CNS regeneration, thus providing new cues for better treatment of neurodegenerative diseases or nerve injury.
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The hippocampus and amygdala, as important components of the limbic system, play crucial roles in central remodeling in congenital hearing loss. This study aimed to investigate the morphological integrity and network properties of the subfields of hippocampus and amygdala in children with congenital hearing loss. ⋯ Children with congenital hearing loss display specific volumetric increases in hippocampal subregions, suggesting compensatory adaptations to auditory deprivation. The hippocampus-amygdala network shows significant reorganization, potentially underpinning cognitive and behavioral development issues associated with congenital hearing loss. These findings highlight the importance of targeted neural substrates in understanding and addressing the developmental challenges faced by children with congenital hearing loss.
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Parkinson's disease is a heterogenous neurodegenerative disorder with a wide variety of motor and non-motor symptoms. This study used resting-state fMRI to identify the neural substrates of PD and explore the acute neural response to acupuncture stimulation in 74 participants (50 patients with PD and 24 healthy controls). All participants with PD were evaluated for the severity of symptoms using the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale and Balance Master. ⋯ Finally, acupuncture stimulation at GB34 significantly reduced the activity of the occipital regions in patients with PD, but this effect was not observed in healthy controls. The mixed-effects analysis revealed an interaction effects between group and acupuncture stimulation, suggesting that the modulatory effects of acupuncture could differ depending on disease status. Therefore, this study suggests the neural substrates of PD and potential underpinnings of acute neural response to acupuncture stimulation.
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The thalamus is crucial for supporting various cognitive behaviors due to its extensive connectivity with multiple cortical regions. However, the role of the thalamus and its functional connections with cortical regions in cognitive reasoning remains unclear, since previous research has mainly focused on cortical regions when studying the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive reasoning. To fill this knowledge gap, we utilized 7 T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the activation patterns of the thalamus and its functional connections with cortical regions during cognitive reasoning task, while also examining how the complexity of reasoning tasks affects thalamic activation and functional connections with cortical regions. ⋯ Given the complex thalamus structure, including multiple distinct nuclei exhibiting specific functional connections with particular cortical regions, we used an atlas defined thalamic subdivisions based on its structural connectivity with different cortical regions. Our findings indicated that these different thalamic subregions not only exhibited distinct connectivity patterns with specific cortical regions during performance of cognitive reasoning, but also showed distinct connectivity patterns varied with task complexity. Overall, our study presents evidence of the thalamus's role and its connections with cortical regions in supporting increasingly complex cognitive reasoning behavior, illuminating its contribution to higher-order cognitive functions, such as reasoning.