Ischemic stroke is induced by a blockage in a cerebral vessel. Approximately 795,000 people suffer ischemic strokes every year in the United States.¹ Emergency reperfusion therapy can restore perfusion and mitigate cognitive dysfunction.² However, this treatment leads to increased risk of cerebral hemorrhage and cerebral hernia.³ Therefore, there is an urgent need for effective vascular perfusion biomarkers that can identify patients most likely to benefit from reperfusion therapy.

This paper is concerned with the global finite-time and fixed-time synchronization for a class of discontinuous complex dynamical networks with semi-Markovian switching and mixed time-varying delays. The novel state-feedback controllers, which include integral terms and discontinuous facts, are designed to realize the global synchronization between the drive system and response system. By applying the Lyapunov functional method and matrix inequality analysis technique, the global finite-time and fixed-time synchronization conditions are addressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, two numerical examples are provided to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed control scheme and the validity of theoretical results.

Objective: Low-frequency oscillations (LFOs) observed in the periphery may reflect physiological processes. The aim of this study was to investigate these processes’ effects on LFOs and the differences between healthy subjects and those with peripheral arteriosclerosis disease (PAD). Methods: 14 PAD patients and 25 healthy controls were studied in resting (RS) and passive leg raising (PLR) states. We simultaneously measured LFOs at the peripheral left earlobes (LE), right earlobes (RE), left fingertips (LF), right fingertips (RF), left toes (LT), and right toes (RT), along with coherence and phase shift analysis processing. Results: The coherence coefficients in the PAD group were lower than those in the healthy group ( p < .01), and the phase shifts in the PAD group were higher than those in the healthy group ( p < .01) in a resting state. Mild to moderate PAD patients had greater coherence coefficients and smaller phase shifts than severe PAD patients. 0.05 Hz PLR LFOs originating in the LT can be observed in other peripheral positions. The proportion of occurrence times for 0.05 Hz PLR LFOs peaks observed at different peripheral positions was different in healthy subjects, patients with bilateral multiple lower limb arteriosclerosis, and those with left or right lower limb arteriosclerosis. Conclusion: The coherence coefficient and phase shift characteristics of LFOs were different between healthy subjects and PAD patients. LFOs have the potential to provide valuable physiological process information associated with atherosclerosis in the periphery.

In this paper, we focus on the robust fixed-time synchronization for discontinuous neural networks (NNs) with delays and hybrid couplings under uncertain disturbances, where the growth of discontinuous activation functions is governed by a quadratic polynomial. New state-feedback controllers, which include integral terms and discontinuous factors, are designed. By Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional method and inequality analysis technique, some sufficient criteria, which ensue that networks can realize the robust fixed-time synchronization, are addressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Moreover, the upper bound of the settling time, which is independent on the initial values, can be determined to any desired values in advance by the configuration of parameters in the proposed control law. Finally, two examples are provided to illustrate the validity of the theoretical results.

Given the rising mortality rates from cardiovascular diseases and the high incidence of neurological disorders, this letter presents a device that integrates a seven-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) pathway and a single-channel electrocardiogram (ECG) signal pathway for accurate detection, transmission, and display of multimodal signals. Using a Teensy 3.1 processor as the control core, and simultaneously controls the opening and closing of multiple signal acquisition channels. The host computer software developed on the Python Qt 5 framework displays and saves real-time data. Experimental results demonstrate that in ECG testing, the relative error between the heart rate data collected by the device and that measured by the Apple Watch S6 is within 5%, indicating high precision in ECG signal acquisition. A passive leg-raising experiment was further designed to validate that the integrated NIRS-ECG system can effectively reflect neurovascular coupling in the human body. This approach overcomes the limitations of single-modality detection methods.