Search

ObjectiveTo analyze the relationship between serum complement component 1q (C1q) levels and functional prognosis in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH), and to reveal its clinical value.MethodsIn this prospective cohort study, we collected clinical data of aSAH patients admitted to the Department of Neurosurgery, Hangzhou First People’s Hospital from January 2020 to October 2022. Parameters such as serum C1q levels, Hunt-Hess grade, modified Fisher grade, and the modified Rankin scale (mRS) at 3 months were included for evaluation. Patients were grouped based on the occurrence of delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI). Spearman rank correlation test and Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test were used to analyze the correlation between serum C1q levels, disease severity, and prognosis. Potential risk factors affecting prognosis and the occurrence of DCI were screened through Independent sample t-test or Mann–Whitney U test. Variables with significant differences (p

BackgroundPercutaneous balloon compression (PBC) is an effective and well-established surgery for treating trigeminal neuralgia (TN). However, if the initial attempt fails to produce a distinct pear shape, there is no conventional strategy to follow: repeat a few days later or re-puncture?AimsThis study aimed to analyze the risk and gain of re-puncturation in PBC surgery for TN treatment.MethodsWe reviewed radiographs and medical records from 79 consecutive PBC cases. The complications and surgical outcomes were compared between one-time success pears and multiple re-puncturing pears. Re-puncturing methods included selecting a more appropriate entry point, a more possible entry angle, finding a stretchy spot around the margin of foramen ovale (FO) with a trocar, and exploring the direction with more resistance using a thinner guiding needle.ResultsIn 50% of cases, satisfactory pears were obtained after the first puncture, and in 35% of cases, satisfactory pears were obtained following re-puncturation. Except for hemihypogeusia, which was significantly more in multiple punctures cases (p < 0.05), no additional adverse effects were statistically different between the two groups. There are very few rare complications associated with re-puncturation. Log-Rank test of pain-free rate revealed no statistically significant differences between the two groups (p = 0.129).ConclusionThis study establishes the safety of re-puncturation in PBC surgery for TN treatment. The operation increases pears and does not cause any serious complications. The surgical outcomes of re-puncturation pears are almost identical to those one-time success pears.

When and how was the Tibetan Plateau (TP), one of the least habitable regions on Earth, occupied by humans are important questions in the research of human evolution. Among tens of Paleolithic archaeological sites discovered over the past decades, only five are considered coeval with or older than the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ∼27–19 ka). As one of them, the Siling Co site in the central TP was previously announced to be ∼40–30 ka based on radiocarbon dating and stratigraphic correlation. Given the loose chronological constraint in previous studies, we here re-examined the chronology of the Siling Co site with the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating technique. Four sections from the paleo-shoreline at an elevation of ∼4,600 m in southeastern Siling Co were investigated, with stone artifacts found from the ground surface. Dating results of nine samples delineated the age of ∼4,600 m paleo-shoreline to be ∼10–7 ka (∼8.54 ± 0.21 ka in average). This age indicates that the Siling Co site is not earlier than the early Holocene, much younger than the former age. The revised age of the Siling Co site is consistent with the wet and humid climate conditions on the TP during the early Holocene.

Development of computer science has led to the blooming of artificial intelligence (AI), and neural networks are the core of AI research. Although mainstream neural networks have done well in the fields of image processing and speech recognition, they do not perform well in models aimed at understanding contextual information. In our opinion, the reason for this is that the essence of building a neural network through parameter training is to fit the data to the statistical law through parameter training. Since the neural network built using this approach does not possess memory ability, it cannot reflect the relationship between data with respect to the causality. Biological memory is fundamentally different from the current mainstream digital memory in terms of the storage method. The information stored in digital memory is converted to binary code and written in separate storage units. This physical isolation destroys the correlation of information. Therefore, the information stored in digital memory does not have the recall or association functions of biological memory which can present causality. In this paper, we present the results of our preliminary effort at constructing an associative memory system based on a spiking neural network. We broke the neural network building process into two phases: the Structure Formation Phase and the Parameter Training Phase. The Structure Formation Phase applies a learning method based on Hebb's rule to provoke neurons in the memory layer growing new synapses to connect to neighbor neurons as a response to the specific input spiking sequences fed to the neural network. The aim of this phase is to train the neural network to memorize the specific input spiking sequences. During the Parameter Training Phase, STDP and reinforcement learning are employed to optimize the weight of synapses and thus to find a way to let the neural network recall the memorized specific input spiking sequences. The results show that our memory neural network could memorize different targets and could recall the images it had memorized.