In recent years, under the support of the National Key Research and Development Program, National High-tech Research and Development Program (863 Program), Science and Technology Support Program, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Key Research Topics of Beijing Natural Science Foundation, Key Research and Development program of Shanxi Province and other research projects, the neuroimaging and brain functional status assessment research team of Associate Professor Liu Tao and Professor Niu Haijun of the School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering of Beihang University, the team of Professor Wang Yongjun of the National Neurological Disease Clinical Research Center of Beijing Tiantan Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, and the team of Professor Perminder Sachdev of the School of Medicine and Health from University of New South Wales have collaborated in the field of neurological impact and brain science and have achieved several research results.
The main research contents include: construction of innovative indicators based on multimodal neuroimaging, exploration of brain structure and functional mechanism, brain-muscle interface for severe disabilities and its application in the field of care, and the development of brain state monitoring and evaluation technology and system in brain diseases and complex tasks.
In the past year, the research results have been successively published in the Lancet subjournal eBioMedicine (DOI: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2022.104144, SCI IF: 11.205, CAS Medical Region 1), the well-known international journal in the field of medical artificial intelligence IEEE TMI ( DOI: 10.1109/TMI.2021.3085948, SCI IF: 11.037, CAS Medical Region 1), the famous international journal in the field of rehabilitation engineering IEEE TNSRE (DOI: 10.1109/TNSRE.2022.3156546, SCI IF: 4.528, Chinese Academy of Sciences Rehabilitation Medicine District 1), Neuroimage (DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117740, SCI IF: 7.40, CAS Neuroimaging Zone 1) and other well-known journals.
The research result recently reported by eBioMedicine, titled “Reduced White Matter Microstructural Integrity in Prediabetes and Diabetes: A Population-based Study” (DOI: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2022.104144), is an important part of the above research work. Diabetes is one of the important risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, cerebral small vessel disease and other neurological diseases. There is significant white matter microstructure damage in the brain of diabetic patients, but the onset time of such damage caused by hyperglycemia remains unclear.
Based on a community-based prospective cohort of the Chinese population, this study used diffusion tensor imaging, combined with a spatial statistical method based on fiber tracking, to calculate and analyze the pre-diabetes and diabetes brain white matter microstructure damage status, as well as the relationship between white matter microstructural damage and hyperglycemia through the brain white matter anisotropic scores and mean dispersion index.
The study defines new criteria for a high-risk group of prediabetes, and finds that localized white matter microstructural damage is present in their brain. The results suggest that the intervention of diabetes should be advanced to high-risk prediabetes, which provides important information for the early intervention and treatment of diabetes-induced white matter damage.
(Left: normal glucose metabolism; Middle: pre-diabetes; Right: diabetes)
The results are a collaborative effort of the above-mentioned research teams. The first authors are Jing Jing, Zhou Yijun, Pan Yuesong and Cai Xueli. Corresponding affiliations include the School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering of Beihang University, China National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases and the Lishui Central Hospital of Zhejiang Province. The journal eBioMedicine is one of two journals in The Lancet Discovery Science series.
Reported by Yang Xianda
Reviewed by Li Deyu
Edited by Jia Aiping
Translated by Zang Mingming
