Tinnitus refers to sound perception in the absence of external sound stimulus. It has become a worldwide problem affecting all age groups especially the elderly. Tinnitus often accompanies hearing loss and some mood disorders like depression and anxiety. The comprehensive adverse effects of tinnitus on people determine the severity of tinnitus. Understanding the mechanisms of tinnitus and related discomfort may be beneficial to the prevention and treatment, and then getting patients out of tinnitus distress. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a powerful technique for characterizing the intrinsic brain activity and making us better understand the tinnitus neural mechanism. In this article, we review fMRI studies published in recent years on the neuroimaging mechanisms of tinnitus. The results have revealed various neural network alterations in tinnitus patients, including the auditory system, limbic system, default mode network, attention system, and some other areas involved in memory, emotion, attention, and control. Moreover, changes in functional connectivity and neural activity in these networks are related to the perception, persistence, and severity of tinnitus. In summary, the neural mechanism of tinnitus is a complex regulatory mechanism involving multiple networks. Future research is needed to study these neural networks more accurately to refine the tinnitus models.

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Repetitive intracutaneous injections with local anesthetics and steroids along with standard treatment significantly reduce the duration of pain and herpetic eruption and incidence of PHN.

Intracutaneous sterile water injection (ISWI) is used for relief of low back pain during labor, acute attacks of urolithiasis, chronic neck and shoulder pain following whiplash injuries, and chronic myofascial pain syndrome. We conducted a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the effect of ISWI for relief of acute low back pain (aLBP). A total of 68 patients (41 females and 27 males) between 18 and 55 years old experiencing aLBP with moderate to severe pain (scores ≥5 on an 11-point visual analogue scale [VAS]) were recruited and randomly assigned to receive either ISWIs (n=34) or intracutaneous isotonic saline injections (placebo treatment; n=34). The primary outcome was improvement in pain intensity using the VAS at 10, 45, and 90 min and 1 day after treatment. The secondary outcome was functional improvement, which was assessed using the Patient-Specific Functional Scale (PSFS) 1 day after treatment. The mean VAS score was significantly lower in the ISWI group than in the control group at 10, 45, and 90 min, and 1 day after injection (P<0.05, t-test). The mean increment in PSFS score of the ISWI group was 2.9±2.2 1 day after treatment, while that in the control group was 0.9±2.2. Our study showed that ISWI was effective for relieving pain and improving function in aLBP patients at short-term follow-up. ISWI might be an alternative treatment for aLBP patients, especially in areas where medications are not available, as well as in specific patients (e.g., those who are pregnant or have asthma), who are unable to receive medications or other forms of analgesia because of side effects.

Hemorrhagic transformation (HT) is one of the most serious complications after endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients. The purpose of this study is to develop and validate deep‐learning (DL) models based on multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to automatically predict HT in AIS patients. Multiparametric MRI and clinical data of AIS patients with EVT from two centers (data set 1 for training and testing: n = 338; data set 2 for validating: n = 54) were used in the DL models. The acute infarction area of diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) and hypoperfusion of perfusion‐weighted imaging (PWI) was labeled manually. Two forms of data sets (volume of interest [VOI] data sets and slice data sets) were analyzed, respectively. The models based on single parameter and multiparameter models were developed and validated to predict HT in AIS patients after EVT. Performance was evaluated by area under the receiver‐operating characteristic curve (AUC), accuracy (ACC), sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, and positive predictive value. The results showed that the performance of single parameter model based on MTT (VOI data set: AUC = 0.933, ACC = 0.843; slice data set: AUC = 0.945, ACC = 0.833) and TTP (VOI data set: AUC = 0.916, ACC = 0.873; slice data set: AUC = 0.889, ACC = 0.818) were better than the other single parameter model. The multiparameter model based on DWI & MTT & TTP & Clinical (DMTC) had the best performance for predicting HT (VOI data set: AUC = 0.948, ACC = 0.892; slice data set: AUC = 0.932, ACC = 0.873). The DMTC model in the external validation set achieved similar performance with the testing set (VOI data set: AUC = 0.939, ACC = 0.884; slice data set: AUC = 0.927, ACC = 0.871) (p > 0.05). The proposed clinical, DWI, and PWI multiparameter DL model has great potential for assisting the periprocedural management in the early prediction HT of the AIS patients with EVT.

Microglia play an important role in mediating inflammatory processes in the central nervous system (CNS). Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) is a microglia-specific receptor and could decrease neuropathology in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the detailed mechanism remains unclear. This study was designed to elucidate the effect of TREM2 on microglia. We showed that lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation significantly increases proinflammatory cytokines and suppressed TREM2 in microglia. In addition, TREM2 overexpression inhibited LPS-induced microglia activation and elevated M2 phenotype of microglia. Together, our results demonstrate that TREM2 overexpression reduced LPS-induced proinflammatory cytokine release in microglia and increased M2 phenotype of microglia. These findings provide novel insights that the regulation of microglia polarization may be an approach for ameliorating microglia inflammation in neurodegenerative diseases.

PVP displays a strong correlation and agreement with CVP under the increased intrathoracic pressure of pneumoperitoneum in the Trendelenburg position and may be used as an alternative to CVP in patients without cardiac disease undergoing laparoscopic colorectal surgery.