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Rabies is an almost invariably fatal disease that can present as classic furious rabies or paralytic rabies. Recovery has been reported in only a few patients, most of whom were infected with bat rabies virus variants, and has been associated with promptness of host immune response and spontaneous (immune) virus clearance. Viral mechanisms that have evolved to minimise damage to the CNS but enable the virus to spread might explain why survivors have overall good functional recovery. The shorter survival of patients with furious rabies compared with those with paralytic rabies closely corresponds to the greater amount of virus and lower immune response in the CNS of patients with the furious form. Rabies virus is present in the CNS long before symptom onset: subclinical anterior horn cell dysfunction and abnormal brain MRI in patients with furious rabies are evident days before brain symptoms develop. How the virus produces its devastating effects and how it selectively impairs behaviour in patients with furious rabies and the peripheral nerves of patients with paralytic rabies is beginning to be understood. However, to develop a pragmatic treatment strategy, a thorough understanding of the neuropathogenetic mechanisms is needed.

Glucose metabolism of cancer can be used as a strategy to target cancer cells which exhibit altered glycolytic rate. The facilitated glucose transporter (Glut) plays an important role in enhancement glycolytic rate resulting in increased glucose uptake into cancer cells. 18FGD-PET image is an example for using Glut as a targeting to diagnose the high glycolytic rate of tumor. Thus, Glut may be adapted to target cancer cells for drug delivery system. Herein, biodegradation polymeric micelles target cancer cells by Glut was fabricated. The amphiphilic block copolymer of poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(ε-caprolactone) (PEG-b-PCL) was synthesized where terminal group of the PEG chain was installed with glucose molecules. The 1H-NMR confirmed the existence of glucose moiety from two distinct peaks (5.2 and 4.7 ppm) of protons at anomeric carbon of glucose. Glucose-PEG-b-PCL spontaneously forms micelles in an aqueous solution. The size and zeta potential were 22 nm and -7 mv, respectively. Glucose-micelles have high stability, and no evidence of cytotoxicity was found after incubation for 7 days. Doxorubicin, used as a fluorescent probe, was loaded into glucose-micelles. The enhanced amount of doxorubicin as a result of glucose-micelles in PC-3, MCF-7 and HepG2 was evaluated by fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometer. Glucose molecules on the surface of micelles increased internalization and enhanced uptake of micelles via bypassing endocytosis pathway. These results show the use of glucose as a targeting ligand on the micelle surface to target cancer cells via Glut.

Nanoparticle-based magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) phantom was developed from the suspension of magnetic nanoparticles composing methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(styrene) (PEG- b -PS) micelles and superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles in the core of micelles. The size of SPIO-loaded micelles was determined by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy. Larger-size micelles were found when SPIO loading was increased. The effect of the hydrophobic section of block copolymer on the size of micelles was studied by DLS. Transverse relaxivity was evaluated on both 1.5 and 3 T clinical MRI scanner. Higher SPIO-loading provided higher relaxivity, where the relaxivity of 10% SPIO-loaded PEG(5 kDa)- b -PS(5 kDa) were 144.0 and 174.0 m M - 1 s - 1 for 1.5 and 3 T MRI, respectively. This formulation showed stability over a 10-week period, and the standard deviations of the relaxivities were 3.0 and 8.0% for 1.5 and 3 T MRI, respectively. Thus, SPIO-loaded PEG- b -PS micelles have a potential to be applied as a contrast agent for nanoparticle-based MRI phantom.

Objective This study aims to develop a ResNet50‐based deep learning model for focal liver lesion (FLL) classification in ultrasound images, comparing its performance with other models and prior research. Methodology We retrospectively collected 581 ultrasound images from the Chulabhorn Hospital's HCC surveillance and screening project (2010–2018). The dataset comprised five classes: non‐FLL, hepatic cyst (Cyst), hemangioma (HMG), focal fatty sparing (FFS), and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We conducted 5‐fold cross‐validation after random dataset partitioning, enhancing training data with data augmentation. Our models used modified pre‐trained ResNet50, GGN, ResNet18, and VGG16 architectures. Model performance, assessed via confusion matrices for sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy, was compared across models and with prior studies. Results ResNet50 outperformed other models, achieving a 5‐fold cross‐validation accuracy of 87 ± 2.2%. While VGG16 showed similar performance, it exhibited higher uncertainty. In the testing phase, the pretrained ResNet50 excelled in classifying non‐FLL, cysts, and FFS. To compare with other research, ResNet50 surpassed the prior methods like two‐layered feed‐forward neural networks (FFNN) and CNN+ReLU in FLL diagnosis. Conclusion ResNet50 exhibited good performance in FLL diagnosis, especially for HCC classification, suggesting its potential for developing computer‐aided FLL diagnosis. However, further refinement is required for HCC and HMG classification in future studies.

Polymeric micelles of poly(ethylene glycol)- block -poly(ɛ-caprolactone) bearing glucose analog encapsulated with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (Glu-SPIO micelles) were synthesized as an MRI contrast agent to target cancer cells based on high-glucose metabolism. Compared to SPIO micelles (non-targeting SPIO micelles), Glu-SPIO micelles demonstrated higher toxicity to human prostate cancer cell lines (PC-3) at high concentration. Atomic absorption spectroscopy was used to determine the amount of iron in cells. It was found that the iron in cancer cells treated by Glu-SPIO micelles were 27-fold higher than cancer cells treated by SPIO micelles at the iron concentration of 25 ppm and fivefold at the iron concentration of 100 ppm. To implement Glu-SPIO micelles as a MR contrast agent, the 3-T clinical MRI was applied to determine transverse relaxivities ( r 2 *) and relaxation rate (1/ T 2 *) values. In vitro MRI showed different MRI signal from cancer cells after cellular uptake of SPIO micelles and Glu-SPIO micelles. Glu-SPIO micelles was highly sensitive with the r 2 * in agarose gel at 155 mM −1  s −1 . Moreover, the higher 1/ T 2 * value was found for cancer cells treated with Glu-SPIO micelles. These results supported that glucose ligand increased the cellular uptake of micelles by PC-3 cells with over-expressing glucose transporter on the cell membrane. Thus, glucose can be used as a small molecule ligand for targeting prostate cancer cells overexpressing glucose transporter.

Muaythai (Thai boxing, the national martial art of Thailand) has become increasingly popular worldwide. Many Thai children start training and being in boxing matches at very early ages; therefore they may be at risk for cognitive impairment, memory dysfunction, or brain disorders later in lives due to repeated brain injuries.To investigate for scientific evidences, neuropsychological tests, MRI, functional MRI (fMRI), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were conducted on 108, 165, and 60 child boxers with <2, 2–5, and >5 years of boxing experiences, respectively, as well as 200 age-matched normal controls (same socioeconomic status).Compared to the controls, over the increasing years of boxing experiences, decreased DTI FA (indicating white matter damage), increased DTI MD (representing loosening of the brain tissue) and increased MRI R2* (indicating accumulation of old blood product), decreased memory-task fMRI activations (suggesting brain injury along the limbic circuit), and decreased motor-task fMRI activations (reflecting better motor skill) were statistically significantly found in child boxers. However, increased fMRI activations were discovered at right motor cortex of the brain, perhaps, because the child boxers were able to better use left hands. The average IQ of the boxer was clearly decreased, and progressively decreased with longer years of boxing experiences.Should children be discouraged from Muaythai? Can we prevent them from the foreseeing brain damages while preserving the national-to-be-world heritage and improving child physical skills and health!

An important challenge in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is to achieve the most spatially accurate results, i.e., to localize activation as close as possible to the actual site of working neurons. Because fMRI detection methods are based on the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) property of brain microvascular and venous systems, any model-based fMRI detection method will provide inaccurate results if the model is biased to the BOLD response of a draining venous system, e.g., a vein. Here, a novel detection method is proposed to achieve accurate localization by measuring the spatiotemporal dynamics of brain activations in fMRI to separate microvasculature from venous activations. The method utilizes precisely down-sampled multiple models (with positive and negative delays). Thus conventional 3D fMRI results are expanded into 4D (with an additional temporal dimension). Example fMRI studies underline the usefulness of the approach. Even though early BOLD activations may be very close to the working neurons, they are not guaranteed to be at the actual site of working neurons. Because the BOLD effect is a slow process (a few seconds to its peak), one cannot use it to detect fast electrical signals produced by working neurons. The proposed method is extended to directly detect fast electrical signals of neurons by a design that converts millisecond latencies of the electric fields to relatively slow latencies through aliasing. The dephasing of the MRI magnetic field caused by the neural currents can then be detected at the relatively slow aliased frequencies by using the proposed method to measure spatiotemporal dynamics. Keywords. Spatiotemporal Dynamics, fMRI, dfMRI, MRI, Direct Neuromagnetic Signal Detection, nfMRI, Neuroelectric Signal, Magnetic Source, msMRI, Aliasing.