Quantitative Brain Electrical Activity In The Initial Screening Of Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries After Blast

ABSTRACT QUANTITATIVE BRAIN ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY IN THE INITIAL SCREENING OF MILD TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURIES AFTER BLAST by CHENGPENG ZHOU August 2015 Advisor: Dr. John Michael Cavanaugh, Dr. Chaoyang Chen Major: Biomedical Engineering Degree: Master of Science Objective: Quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) has been reported to be sensitive in the diagnosis and measurement of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) in civilian setting and thus may be a promising tool in individuals who have been exposed to blast forces. Using a swine model, this study investigated EEG changes early after blast exposure. The purpose was to determine if QEEG can detect brain activity abnormalities earlier after blast exposure and to develop a QEEG data analysis protocol. Methods: Six swines were used in this study. Swine were anesthetized using ketamine and propofol, and exposed to 410-460 kPa blast overpressure. EEG recordings were performed at 15 min before blast, and 15 min, 30 min and 2 hours, and 1, 2, 3 days post-blast using Biopac data acquisition system. Non-invasive surface recording electrodes were placed on the skin over both central (C3, C4) and parietal (P3, P4) areas of the skull. Acknowledge software was used for off-line EEG data analysis. qEEG parameters including frequency, Spectral edge frequency (SEF-90), and power (V2/Hz/Min) of delta, theta, alpha, and beta bands were analyzed and compared between pre-blast and post-blast and different recording locations. Other qEEG parameters including alpha-delta ratio (ADR). Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software (Repaeted Measures of ANOVA, postHoc LSD). Results: The EEG activity decreased fast frequency, and increased slower frequency after the blast. The EEG mean frequency have no statistic significant before and after blast at left parietal, left front and right front recording site. At the right parietal recording site, EEG mean frequency decreased from 6.78±2.01 Hz before blast to 3.36±0.28 Hz, 3.10±0.19, 3.47±0.21, 3.43±0.11 at 15 min, 2h, 1d, 2d after blast (P\u3c0.05), returned to 5.25±1.96 Hz, 4.52±1.26 Hz at 30 min, 3d after blast (P\u3e0.05). The SEF-90 have no statistic significant before and after blast at left front recording site. At the left parietal recording site, SEF-90 decreased from 18.22±3.51 Hz before blast to 10.27±1.24 Hz, 10.84±1.22 Hz at 15 min, 2d after blast (P\u3c0.05), respectively, and returned to 14.25±3.01 Hz, 17.27±3.15, 14.94±0.86 Hz, 11.03±2.03 Hz at 30 min, 2h, 1d, 3d after blast (P\u3e0.05), respectively. At the right parietal recording site, SEF-90 decreased from 20.46±3.63 Hz before blast to 10.43±1.26, 10.74±1.18, 11.98±1.15, 11.44±0.72 at 15 min, 2h, 1d, 2d after blast (P\u3c0.05), respectively, and returned to 13.84±3.97, 13.21±4.49 at 30 min, 3d after blast (P\u3e0.05), respectively. At the right front recording site, SEF-90 decreased from 16.55±4.14 Hz before blast to 9.31±1.01 after blast (P\u3c0.05), and returned to 16.10±3.37, 15.09±2.07, 12.52±1.68, 10.10±0.64, 13.29±1.76 at 30 min, 2h, 1d, 2d, 3d after blast (P\u3e0.05), respectively. The Lower Alpha band power (8-10 Hz) have no statistic significant before and after blast at right parietal, left front, right front recording site. At the left parietal recording site, Alpha power decreased from 5×10-3±4×10-3 V2/Hz before blast to 4.9×10-4±4×10-4 V2/Hz, 8.8×10-4±4×10-4 V2/Hz, 1.7×10-4±3×10-5 V2/Hz, 2.5×10-4±8×10-5 V2/Hz at 15 min, 2h, 1d, 2d after blast (P\u3c0.05), respectively, and returned to 1.2×10-3±5×10-4 V2/Hz , 7.6×10-4±2×10-4 V2/Hz at 30 min, 3d after blast (P\u3e0.05), respectively. The Beta band power and theta band power, Delta band power, and Alpha-Delta power ratio (ADR) have no statistic significant before and after blast at all recording sites Conclusions: The EEG activity lost fast frequency, and increased slower frequency after the blast. The EEG power significantly decreased in fast frequency band, and increased in slower frequency band. QEEG is sensitive for cerebral injury and can predict outcome in a swine model of brain injury. This study demonstrated the changes of QEEG after blast indicative of the potential of utilization of multiple parameters of QEEG for diagnosis of blast-induced brain injury. Further studies are necessary to investigate the effectiveness of QEEG in chronic brain injury and recovery.

Scaling Relationship on Learning Mathematical Reasoning with Large Language Models

Mathematical reasoning is a challenging task for large language models (LLMs), while the scaling relationship of it with respect to LLM capacity is under-explored. In this paper, we investigate how the pre-training loss, supervised data amount, and augmented data amount influence the reasoning performances of a supervised LLM. We find that pre-training loss is a better indicator of the model's performance than the model's parameter count. We apply supervised fine-tuning (SFT) with different amounts of supervised data and empirically find a log-linear relation between data amount and model performance, and we find better models improve less with enlarged supervised datasets. To augment more data samples for improving model performances without any human effort, we propose to apply Rejection sampling Fine-Tuning (RFT). RFT uses supervised models to generate and collect correct reasoning paths as augmented fine-tuning datasets. We find with augmented samples containing more distinct reasoning paths, RFT improves mathematical reasoning performance more for LLMs. We also find RFT brings more improvement for less performant LLMs. Furthermore, we combine rejection samples from multiple models which push LLaMA-7B to an accuracy of 49.3\% on GSM8K which outperforms the supervised fine-tuning (SFT) accuracy of 35.9\% significantly.Comment: Working in Progres

A New Insight into the Role of CART in Cocaine Reward: Involvement of CaMKII and Inhibitory G-Protein Coupled Receptor Signaling

Cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) peptides are neuropeptides that are expressed in brain regions associated with reward, such as the nucleus accumbens (NAc), and play a role in cocaine reward. Injection of CART into the NAc can inhibit the behavioral effects of cocaine, and injecting CART into the ventral tegmental area (VTA) reduces cocaine-seeking behavior. However, the exact mechanism of these effects is not clear. Recent research has demonstrated that Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) and inhibitory G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling are involved in the mechanism of the effect of CART on cocaine reward. Hence, we review the role of CaMKII and inhibitory GPCR signaling in the effect of CART on cocaine reward and provide a new insight into the mechanism of that effect. In this article, we will first review the biological function of CART and discuss the role of CART in cocaine reward. Then, we will focus on the role of CaMKII and inhibitory GPCR signaling in cocaine reward. Furthermore, we will discuss how CaMKII and inhibitory GPCR signaling are involved in the mechanistic action of CART in cocaine reward. Finally, we will provide our opinions regarding the future directions of research on the role of CaMKII and inhibitory GPCR signaling in the effect of CART on cocaine reward

Short-term dietary choline supplementation alters the gut microbiota and liver metabolism of finishing pigs

Choline is an essential nutrient for pig development and plays a role in the animal's growth performance, carcass characteristics, and reproduction aspects in weaned pigs and sows. However, the effect of choline on finishing pigs and its potential regulatory mechanism remains unclear. Here, we feed finishing pigs with 1% of the hydrochloride salt of choline, such as choline chloride (CHC), under a basic diet condition for a short period of time (14 days). A 14-day supplementation of CHC significantly increased final weight and carcass weight while having no effect on carcass length, average backfat, or eye muscle area compared with control pigs. Mechanically, CHC resulted in a significant alteration of gut microbiota composition in finishing pigs and a remarkably increased relative abundance of bacteria contributing to growth performance and health, including Prevotella, Ruminococcaceae, and Eubacterium. In addition, untargeted metabolomics analysis identified 84 differently abundant metabolites in the liver between CHC pigs and control pigs, of which most metabolites were mainly enriched in signaling pathways related to the improvement of growth, development, and health. Notably, there was no significant difference in the ability of oxidative stress resistance between the two groups, although increased bacteria and metabolites keeping balance in reactive oxygen species showed in finishing pigs after CHC supplementation. Taken together, our results suggest that a short-term supplementation of CHC contributes to increased body weight gain and carcass weight of finishing pigs, which may be involved in the regulation of gut microbiota and alterations of liver metabolism, providing new insights into the potential of choline-mediated gut microbiota/metabolites in improving growth performance, carcass characteristics, and health

Effects of dietary L-Citrulline supplementation on growth performance, meat quality, and fecal microbial composition in finishing pigs

Gut microbiota play an important role in the gut ecology and development of pigs, which is always regulated by nutrients. This study investigated the effect of L-Citrulline on growth performance, carcass characteristics, and its potential regulatory mechanism. The results showed that 1% dietary L-Citrulline supplementation for 52 days significantly increased final weight, liveweight gain, carcass weight, and average backfat and markedly decreased drip loss (p < 0.05) of finishing pigs compared with the control group. Microbial analysis of fecal samples revealed a marked increase in α-diversity and significantly altered composition of gut microbiota in finishing pigs in response to L-Citrulline. In particular, these altered gut microbiota at the phylum and genus level may be mainly involved in the metabolic process of carbohydrate, energy, and amino acid, and exhibited a significant association with final weight, carcass weight, and backfat thickness. Taken together, our data revealed the potential role of L-Citrulline in the modulation of growth performance, carcass characteristics, and the meat quality of finishing pigs, which is most likely associated with gut microbiota

Dimerization of FIR upon FUSE DNA binding suggests a mechanism of c-myc inhibition

c-myc is essential for cell homeostasis and growth but lethal if improperly regulated. Transcription of this oncogene is governed by the counterbalancing forces of two proteins on TFIIH—the FUSE binding protein (FBP) and the FBP-interacting repressor (FIR). FBP and FIR recognize single-stranded DNA upstream of the P1 promoter, known as FUSE, and influence transcription by oppositely regulating TFIIH at the promoter site. Size exclusion chromatography coupled with light scattering reveals that an FIR dimer binds one molecule of single-stranded DNA. The crystal structure confirms that FIR binds FUSE as a dimer, and only the N-terminal RRM domain participates in nucleic acid recognition. Site-directed mutations of conserved residues in the first RRM domain reduce FIR's affinity for FUSE, while analogous mutations in the second RRM domain either destabilize the protein or have no effect on DNA binding. Oppositely oriented DNA on parallel binding sites of the FIR dimer results in spooling of a single strand of bound DNA, and suggests a mechanism for c-myc transcriptional control

Laser Surface Processing of Hot Rolled Ni-45.0at.%Ti Shape Memory Alloy

Both oxide removal and low surface roughness was achieved at hot rolled Ni-45.0at.%Ti shape memory alloy (SMA) surface using a nanosecond pulsed Nd:YAG laser. The oxidized and polished surfaces were analyzed by White-Light Interference (WLI), Focus ion beam (FIB) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). Special attention was paid to investigate phase transformation evolution of SMA before and after laser irradiation using Differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Results revealed that the as-received oxides with thickness of 10 micron had been removed completely after laser treatment, and surface roughness of laser-treated surface was less than 1μm. Moreover, no obvious change occurred for phase analysis and transformation temperatures of the SMA, indicating that the influence of laser irradiation on shape memory effect of hot rolled Ni-45.0at.%Ti SMA was negligible.Published versio

Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Groundwater Drought and Its Response to Meteorological Drought in Jiangsu Province, China

In this study, the temporal and spatial variations of groundwater drought using a Standardized Groundwater Level Index (SGI) were analyzed based on 40 monthly groundwater level observation wells from 1989 to 2012 in Jiangsu Province, China. Meteorological drought, calculated by the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), was also included to reveal its propagation and impact on the groundwater drought process. Results showed that the southern region of Jiangsu faced more frequent groundwater droughts and lower intensity, while the northern region faced less frequent groundwater drought with higher intensity. Furthermore, the cross-correlation between the spatial average of SGI and SPI for SPI accumulation periods of q = 1 to 12 was computed. The relationship between SGI and SPI varied in different regions. Detailed analysis of the characteristics of groundwater and meteorological drought for each region showed that meteorological droughts happened more frequently than groundwater drought in Jiangsu Province during the study period, while the mean duration and mean magnitude of groundwater droughts were longer and larger than those of meteorological droughts. It is expected that this study will provide useful information for drought monitoring and mitigation in Jiangsu and similar areas