As a noninvasive neuromodulation technique, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is widely used in the clinical treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases, but the mechanism of its action is still unclear. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of different frequencies of magnetic stimulation (MS) on neuronal excitability and voltage-gated potassium channels in the in vitro brain slices from the electrophysiological perspective of neurons. The experiment was divided into stimulus groups and control group, and acute isolated mice brain slices were applied to MS with the same intensity (0.3 T) at different frequencies (20 Hz and 0.5 Hz, 500 pulses) respectively in the stimulus groups. The whole-cell patch clamp technique was used to record the resting membrane potential (RMP), action potential (AP), voltage-gated potassium channels current of hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) granule cells. The results showed that 20 Hz MS significantly increased the number of APs released and the maximum slope of a single AP, reduced the threshold of AP, half width and time to AP peak amplitude, and improved the excitability of hippocampal neurons. The peak currents of potassium channels were decreased, the inactivation curve of transient outward potassium channels shifted to the left significantly, and the time constant of recovery after inactivation increased significantly. 0.5 Hz MS significantly inhibited neuronal excitability and increased the peak currents of potassium channels, but the dynamic characteristics of potassium channels had little change. The results suggest that the dynamic characteristics of voltage-gated potassium channels and the excitability of hippocampal DG granule neurons may be one of the potential mechanisms of neuromodulation by MS.
OBJECTIVE: To prevent the senescence of ’seed cells’ for tissue engineering, the life span of human fibroblasts is extended by reconstitution of telomerase activity, and the osteogenic potential of these fibroblasts are tested. METHODS: The pGRN145 plasmids encoding human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) were introduced into the normal human primary fibroblasts by electroporation. Telomerase activity was analyzed by TRAP-PCR assay. The beta-galactosidase stain was used to indicate the signs of cell senescence. The hTERT positive fibroblasts were then induced to form bone nodules. The bone nodules were stained by tetracycline and Alizarin Red S. RESULTS: Stable telomerase activity could be detected in the transfected fibroblasts and no signs of cell senescence were found in the fibroblasts cultured for more than 50 doublings. The hTERT positive fibroblasts could form bone nodules when they were cultured in vitro induced by bone morphogentic protein 2 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. CONCLUSION: The fibroblasts with reconstituted telomerase activity reserve their osteogenic potential.
The maximum length sequence (m-sequence) has been successfully used to study the linear/nonlinear components of auditory evoked potential (AEP) with rapid stimulation. However, more study is needed to evaluate the effect of the m-sequence order in terms of the noise attenuation performance. This study aimed to address this issue using response-free electroencephalogram (EEG) and EEGs with nonlinear AEPs. We examined the noise attenuation ratios to evaluate the noise variation for the calculations of superimposed averaging and cross-correlation, respectively, which constitutes the main process in the deconvolution method using the dataset of spontaneous EEGs to simulate the cases of different orders (order 5 to 12) of m-sequences. And an experiment using m-sequences of order 7 and 9 was performed in true cases with substantial linear and nonlinear AEPs. The results demonstrate that the noise attenuation ratio is well agreed with the theoretical value derived from the properties of m-sequences on the random noise condition. The comparison of waveforms for AEP components from two m-sequences showed high similarity suggesting the insensitivity of AEP to the m-sequence order. This study provides a more comprehensive solution to the selection of m-sequences which will facilitate the feasible application on the nonlinear AEP with m-sequence method.
A new form of static random-dot stereograms free of monocular clues was designed as stimulus to elicit disparity evoked potentials in 40 normal subjects.A characteristic wide positive wave at about 250ms was consistently recorded in disparity stimulation,which may be regard as evdence of the presence of stereopsis.In constrast,recordings for monocular stimulus all demonstrated a relatively smaller and sharper positive wave with a markedly shortened latency. （Chin J Ocul Fundus Dis,1993,9:214-217）
Attention can concentrate our mental resources on processing certain interesting objects, which is an important mental behavior and cognitive process. Recognizing attentional states have great significance in improving human’s performance and reducing errors. However, it still lacks a direct and standardized way to monitor a person’s attentional states. Based on the fact that visual attention can modulate the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), we designed a go/no-go experimental paradigm with 10 Hz steady state visual stimulation in background to investigate the separability of SSVEP features modulated by different visual attentional states. The experiment recorded the EEG signals of 15 postgraduate volunteers under high and low visual attentional states. High and low visual attentional states are determined by behavioral responses. We analyzed the differences of SSVEP signals between the high and low attentional levels, and applied classification algorithms to recognize such differences. Results showed that the discriminant canonical pattern matching (DCPM) algorithm performed better compared with the linear discrimination analysis (LDA) algorithm and the canonical correlation analysis (CCA) algorithm, which achieved up to 76% in accuracy. Our results show that the SSVEP features modulated by different visual attentional states are separable, which provides a new way to monitor visual attentional states.
Objective To observe the functional state of the optic nerve and discover the injury of visual pathway function in time under general ane sthesia. The flash visual evoked potential (F-VEP) was used to monitor visual function during orbital surgery. Methods A total of 252 out of 282 patients undergoing orbital surgery under general anesthesia were successfully monitored by F-VEP during the surgery. All patients were monitored by this method under the following conditions:consious state before operation, under general anaesthesia, during and after dissection of orbital tumor and at the end of operation. Results ①There was no significant difference of wave amplitude and latency under general anesthesia and consciousness condition. ②The amplitude and latency of F-VEP were normal in the orbital surgery withou toptic nerve injury. ③Pulling and oppression of optic nerve could cause temporary wave loss, but the wave recovered after removal of the pull and oppression. ④ The wave loss of F-VEP would occur immedicately when optic nerve was severe injured and its blood supply was deficient. Since the application of the visual function monitoring, 24 cases were treated in time during disturbance of visual function and no patient has unexpected visual loss during orbital surgery. Conclusion The intraoperative monitoring of F-VEP during orbital surgery can decrease the proportion of permanent visual loss caused by orbit al surgery, and help the surgical procedures go to function-anatomy stage from experience-anatomy stage. (Chin J Ocul Fundus Dis, 2001,17:260-263)
Objective To investigate the cell growth inhibition and apoptosis induced by rapamycin on human hepatocellular carcinoma Bel-7402 cells and to study the role of mitochondrium membrane potential in the process of apoptosis. Methods Bel-7402 cells in vitro were given 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 nmol/L different concentrations of rapamycin, and the cell growth inhibiting ratio of Bel-7402 was assessed by MTT assay. The changes of morphology of Bel-7402 were observed by Hoechst 33258 staining and flow cytometry (FCM), respectively; The cell mitochondrial membrane potential was detected by using JC-1 staining method. Results Rapamycin could inhibit the growth of Bel-7402 cells significantly by inducing apoptosis, and the growth suppression and the cell apoptosis both presented time-effect relationship and were also dose-dependent. The rates of inhibiting and cell apoptosis after 72 h exposure to 50 nmol/L rapamycin were significantly higher that those of other groups (P＜0.01). Typical morphological changes of cell apoptosis were observed very clearly after the Bel-7402 cells had been exposed to rapamycin for 48 hours using Hoechst 33258 staining method, and it was also observed that the mitochondrial membrane potential decreased when apoptosis occured (P＜0.01). Conclusion Rapamycin could inhibit the growth of Bel-7402 cells by inducing cell apoptosis, and the descent of mitochondrial membrane potential may play an important role in the process of cell apoptosis.
Steady-state flsash visual evoked potentials (SFVEPs) of 30 Hz were recorded for 46 normal subjects (89 eyes )and 35 patients (51 eyes )with optic neuropathy. The visual acuities of 58.8%affected eyes were less than 0.1. The recorded waveforms were analyzed by discrete Foruier transform (DTF). The amplitudes and phases of fundamental response component and second harmonic were abstracted as characteristic values of the waveform.The total abnormal ratio was 80. 4%. The abnormal types showed the reduced amplitudes,reduced amplitude with phase change, the phases changes, and flat wave. The advantages of SFVEPs in clinical application were discussed. （Chin J Ocul Fundus Dis,1994,10:213-215）
Coding with high-frequency stimuli could alleviate the visual fatigue of users generated by the brain-computer interface (BCI) based on steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP). It would improve the comfort and safety of the system and has promising applications. However, most of the current advanced SSVEP decoding algorithms were compared and verified on low-frequency SSVEP datasets, and their recognition performance on high-frequency SSVEPs was still unknown. To address the aforementioned issue, electroencephalogram (EEG) data from 20 subjects were collected utilizing a high-frequency SSVEP paradigm. Then, the state-of-the-art SSVEP algorithms were compared, including 2 canonical correlation analysis algorithms, 3 task-related component analysis algorithms, and 1 task discriminant component analysis algorithm. The results indicated that they all could effectively decode high-frequency SSVEPs. Besides, there were differences in the classification performance and algorithms' speed under different conditions. This paper provides a basis for the selection of algorithms for high-frequency SSVEP-BCI, demonstrating its potential utility in developing user-friendly BCI.
ObjectiveTo observe the changes of vision and visual evoked potentials (VEP) in patients with Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) before and after gene therapy.MethodsA retrospective cohort study. From December 2017 to October 2018, 35 cases of 70 eyes of m11778G.A/MT-ND4 mutant LHON patients who were diagnosed in the Tongji Hospital of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and received gene therapy were included in the study. There were 30 males (87.71%) and 5 females (12.29%), with the mean age of 23.31±6.72 years. The gene therapy method was intravitreal injection of rAAV2-ND4 (recombinant adeno-associated virus carrying NADH-ubiquinone oxidoreductase subunit 4 gene) into one eye. The eye with poor visual acuity was chosen as the injection eye. If both eyes had the same visual acuity, the right eye was designated as the injection eye. Seventy eyes were divided into the injected eye group and the non-injected eye group, in which were both 35 eyes. The best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and pattern VEP (PVEP) examinations were performed in the injected eye group and the non-injected eye group before treatment (baseline), 1, 3, and 6 months after injection. Compare the changes of BCVA and PVEP between the injected eye group and the non-injected eye group at baseline, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after injection. Independent sample t test, paired sample t test or two independent sample nonparametric test were performed to compare the two groups.ResultsCompared with baseline, 1, 3, and 6 months after treatment, the BCVA of the injected eye group (t=3.530, 4.962, 5.281; P=0.001, 0.000, 0.000) and the non-injected eye group (t=3.288, 2.620, 2.252; P= 0.002, 0.013, 0.031) increased, and the difference was statistically significant; there was no statistically significant difference between VEP IT (tinjected eye group=−0.158, 1.046, −1.134; Pinjected eye group = 0.875, 0.303, 0.190; tnon-injected eye group=0.773, −0.607, −0.944; Pnon-injected eye group= 0.445, 0.548, 0.352) and VEP A (Zinjected eye group=−0.504, −0.934, −1.065; Pinjected eye group= 0.614, 0.351, 0.287; Znon-injected eye group=−0.521, −0.115, −0.491; Pnon-injected eye group = 0.602, 0.909, 0.623).ConclusionAfter gene therapy, the visual acuity of the injected and non-injected eyes of LHON patients improved; PVEP did not change significantly, and remained stable compared with baseline.