ObjectiveThe intracranial venous system plays an important role in ensuring blood circulation and a stable blood supply to the fetal brain. In the present study, a cross-sectional area of the fetal straight sinus was quantitatively evaluated by fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to explore the method's clinical value.MethodsThe clinical and MRI data of 126 normal fetuses in mid-to-late stage pregnancies were retrospectively analyzed. The “dominant” sequence of the fetal straight sinus was selected, and the cross-sectional area of the lumen was measured at each gestational age to obtain the normal range at different ages and to analyze the developmental pattern and characteristics of the fetal straight sinus.ResultsThere were statistically significant differences in the cross-sectional area of the fetal straight sinus among different gestational ages (P < 0.05). The cross-sectional area of the fetal straight sinus was positively correlated with gestational age (coefficient of determination = 0.6892, P < 0.05). That is, the cross-sectional area of the fetal straight sinus grew with increasing gestational age, and the regression equation was y = 0.27 x – 2.14 (P < 0.05). Additionally, there were five fetuses with cerebral venous abnormalities, including four with heart failure and one with venous sinus thrombosis.ConclusionQuantitative measurement of a cross-sectional area of the fetal straight sinus by MRI enhanced understanding of the anatomical features and developmental pattern of fetal cerebral veins and provided a reference for the clinical diagnosis of related diseases and investigation concerning pathogenesis.
The development of natural polymer-based scaffolds with excellent biocompatibility, antibacterial activity, and blood compatibility, able to facilitate full-thickness skin wound healing, remains challenging. In this study, we have developed three chitosan (CS)-based porous scaffolds, including CS, CS/CNT (carbon nanotubes), and CS/CNT/HA (nano-hydroxyapatite, n-HA) using a freeze-drying method. All three scaffolds have a high swelling ratio, excellent antibacterial activity, outstanding cytocompatibility, and blood compatibility in vitro. The introduction of CNTs exhibited an obvious increase in mechanical properties, and exerts excellent photothermal response, which displays excellent healing performance as a wound dressing in mouse full-thickness skin wound model when compared to CS scaffolds. CS/CNT/HA composite scaffolds present the strongest ability to promote full-thickness cutaneous wound closure and skin regeneration, which might be ascribed to the synergistic effect of photothermal response from CNT and excellent bioactivity from n-HA. Overall, the present study indicated that CNT and n-HA can be engineered as effective constituents in wound dressings to facilitate full-thickness skin regeneration.
The leaf-height-seed (LHS) plant ecology strategy scheme posits that
functional traits such as leaf size, stem height and seed mass play a
key role in life history of plants. Although many studies have explored
the LHS scheme across plant species, to our knowledge, no study has so
far linked functional trait patterns across different plant clades.
Here, we first explored the LHS scheme of several plant clades, i.e.,
palms, other monocots, dicots and gymnosperms, to understand how
potential forces drive variation of plant functional traits. We showed
that phylogeny constrains plant functional traits and appears to be the
most decisive factor that controls variation in seed mass irrespective
of plant clades. Apart from phylogeny, a majority of variation in seed
mass was explained by leaf size in palms clade, whereas by plant height
in other monocots and dicots. Neither leaf size nor plant height well
explained variation in seed mass of gymnosperms clade. Our study
strongly suggests that different plant clades exhibit distinct LHS
schemes, paving a new avenue for better understanding evolution and
correlation between functional traits across sets of plant species.
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