BackgroundA cross-sectional validation study was conducted in several urban and rural communities in Beijing, China, to evaluate the effectiveness of the Beijing version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-BJ) as a screening tool to detect mild cognitive impairment (MCI) among Chinese older adults.MethodsThe MoCA-BJ and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were administered to 1001 Chinese elderly community dwellers recruited from three different regions (i.e., newly developed, old down-town, and rural areas) in Beijing. Twenty-one of these participants were diagnosed by experienced psychiatrists as having dementia, 115 participants were diagnosed as MCI, and 865 participants were considered to be cognitively normal. To analyze the effectiveness of the MoCA-BJ, we examined its psychometric properties, conducted item analyses, evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of the scale, and compared the scale with the MMSE. Demographic and regional differences among our subjects were also taken into consideration.ResultsUnder the recommended cut-off score of 26, the MoCA-BJ demonstrated an excellent sensitivity of 90.4%, and a fair specificity (31.3%). The MoCA-BJ showed optimal sensitivity (68.7%) and specificity (63.9%) when the cut-off score was lowered to 22. Among all the seven cognitive sub-domains, delayed recall was shown to be the best index to differentiate MCI from the normal controls. Regional differences disappeared when the confounding demographic variables (i.e., age and education) were controlled. Item analysis showed that the internal consistency was relatively low in both naming and sentence repetition tasks, and the diagnostic accuracy was similar between the MoCA-BJ and the MMSE.ConclusionsIn general, the MoCA-BJ is an acceptable tool for MCI screening in both urban and rural regions of Beijing. However, presumably due to the linguistic and cultural differences between the original English version and the Chinese version of the scale, and the lower education level of Chinese older adults, the MoCA-BJ is not much better than the MMSE in detecting MCI, at least for this study sample. Further modifications to several test items of the MoCA-BJ are recommended in order to improve the applicability and effectiveness of the MoCA-BJ in MCI screening among the Chinese population.

Extracting named entities in text and linking extracted names to a given knowledge base are fundamental tasks in applications for text understanding. Existing systems typically run a named entity recognition (NER) model to extract entity names first, then run an entity linking model to link extracted names to a knowledge base. NER and linking models are usually trained separately, and the mutual dependency between the two tasks is ignored. We propose JERL, Joint Entity Recognition and Linking, to jointly model NER and linking tasks and capture the mutual dependency between them. It allows the information from each task to improve the performance of the other. To the best of our knowledge, JERL is the first model to jointly optimize NER and linking tasks together completely. In experiments on the CoNLL'03/AIDA data set, JERL outperforms state-of-art NER and linking systems, and we find improvements of 0.4% absolute F 1 for NER on CoNLL'03, and 0.36% absolute precision@1 for linking on AIDA.

The prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe are particularly vulnerable to the effects of aging. The disconnection between them is suggested to be an important cause of cognitive decline in normal aging. Here, using multimodal intervention training, we investigated the functional plasticity in resting-state connectivity of these two regions in older adults. The multimodal intervention, comprised of cognitive training, Tai Chi exercise, and group counseling, was conducted to explore the regional connectivity changes in the default-mode network, as well as changes in prefrontal-based voxel-wise connectivity in the whole brain. Results showed that the intervention selectively affected resting-state functional connectivity between the medial prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe. Moreover, the strength of resting-state functional connectivity between these regions correlated with individual cognitive performance. Our results suggest that multimodal intervention could postpone the effects of aging and improve the function of the regions that are most heavily influenced by aging, as well as play an important role in preserving the brain and cognition during old age.

Mounting evidence suggests that enriched mental, physical, and socially stimulating activities are beneficial for counteracting age-related decreases in brain function and cognition in older adults. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to demonstrate the functional plasticity of brain activity in response to a combined cognitive-psychological-physical intervention and investigated the contribution of the intervention-related brain changes to individual performance in healthy older adults. The intervention was composed of a 6-week program of combined activities including cognitive training, Tai Chi exercise, and group counseling. The results showed improved cognitive performance and reorganized regional homogeneity of spontaneous fluctuations in the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals in the superior and middle temporal gyri, and the posterior lobe of the cerebellum, in the participants who attended the intervention. Intriguingly, the intervention-induced changes in the coherence of local spontaneous activity correlated with the improvements in individual cognitive performance. Taken together with our previous findings of enhanced resting-state functional connectivity between the medial prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe regions following a combined intervention program in older adults, we conclude that the functional plasticity of the aging brain is a rather complex process, and an effective cognitive-psychological-physical intervention is helpful for maintaining a healthy brain and comprehensive cognition during old age.

ObjectiveTo investigate the underlying regional homogeneity (ReHo) in brain-activity deficit in patients with optic neuritis (ON) and its relationship with behavioral performance.Materials and methodsIn total, twelve patients with ON (four males and eight females) and twelve (four males and eight females) age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy controls underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. The ReHo method was used to assess the local features of spontaneous brain activity. Correlation analysis was used to explore the relationship between the observed mean ReHo values of the different brain areas and the visual evoked potential (VEP) in patients with ON.ResultsCompared with the healthy controls, patients with ON showed lower ReHo in the left cerebellum, posterior lobe, left middle temporal gyrus, right insula, right superior temporal gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus, bilateral anterior cingulate cortex, left superior frontal gyrus, right superior frontal gyrus, and right precentral gyrus, and higher ReHo in the cluster of the left fusiform gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule. Meanwhile, we found that the VEP amplitude of the right eye in patients with ON showed a positive correlation with the ReHo signal value of the left cerebellum posterior lobe (r=0.701, P=0.011), the right superior frontal gyrus (r=0.731, P=0.007), and the left fusiform gyrus (r=0.644, P=0.024). We also found that the VEP latency of the right eye in ON showed a positive correlation with the ReHo signal value of the right insula (r=0.595, P=0.041).ConclusionON may involve dysfunction in the default-mode network, which may reflect the underlying pathologic mechanism.

Intestinal IR increases NO and ONOO(-) production in the lung, which may be involved in intestinal IR-mediated lung injury.

This study examined the effects of a multimodal intervention on spontaneous brain activity in healthy older adults. Seventeen older adults received a six-week intervention that consisted of cognitive training, Tai Chi exercise, and group counseling, while 17 older adults in a control group attended health knowledge lectures. The intervention group demonstrated enhanced memory and social support compared to the control group. The amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) in the middle frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, and anterior cerebellum lobe was enhanced for the intervention group, while the control group showed reduced ALFF in these three regions. Moreover, changes in trail-making performance and well-being could be predicted by the intervention-induced changes in ALFF. Additionally, individual differences in the baseline ALFF were correlated with intervention-related changes in behavioral performance. These findings suggest that a multimodal intervention is effective in improving cognitive functions and well-being and can induce functional changes in the aging brain. The study extended previous training studies by suggesting resting-state ALFF as a marker of intervention-induced plasticity in older adults.

To compare the difference in white matter volume (WMV) and gray matter volume (GMV) between the comitant strabismus (CS) patients and health controls by voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and the relationship with behavioral performance. A total of 20 patients with comitant strabismus (10 males and 10 females), and 20 healthy subjects (10 males and 10 females) with matched age, sex status underwent magnetic resonance examination. The authors analyzed the original 3D T1 brain images using the VBM module. The comitant strabismus groups were compared with the control groups for the GMW and WMV of the entire brain. Correlation analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between the GMV and WMV altered areas and the behavioral performance in comitant strabismus. CS patients were distinguishable from the healthy controls (HCs) by receiver operating characteristic curves. Results of the VBM analysis demonstrated that the CS groups had decreased GMV in the brain regions of the left middle temporal pole, left cerebellum posterior lobe, right posterior cingulate cortex, left cuneus and right premotor cortex. Meanwhile, the WMV was significantly decreased in the brain regions of the left middle temporal gyrus, right middle temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, right precuneus and right premotor cortex in the comitant strabismus patients compared with HCs. Furthermore, the duration of CS was negatively correlated with the GMV values of the left middle temporal pole (r=−0.486, P=0.030). CS caused GMV and WMV atrophy in many brain regions, which may indicate the neural mechanisms of the ocular motility disorders in CS patients.