Intercellular communication in the central nervous system (CNS) is essential for brain growth, development, and homeostasis maintenance and, when dysfunctional, is involved in the occurrence and development of neurodegenerative diseases. Increasing evidence indicates that extracellular vesicles, especially exosomes, are critical mediators of intercellular signal transduction. Under physiological and pathological conditions, neural cells secret exosomes with the influence of many factors. These exosomes can carry specific proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and other bioactive substances to the recipient cells to regulate their function. Depending on the CNS environment, as well as the origin and physiological or pathological status of parental cells, exosomes can mediate a variety of different effects, including synaptic plasticity, nutritional metabolic support, nerve regeneration, inflammatory response, anti-stress effect, cellular waste disposal, and the propagation of toxic components, playing an important role in health and neurodegenerative diseases. This review will discuss the possible roles of exosomes in CNS intercellular communication in both physiologic and neurodegenerative conditions.

Phototheranostics, which is the application of light in the diagnostic imaging and therapy of cancer, has shown great promise for multimodal cancer imaging and effective therapy. Herein, we developed multifunctional gold nanorod@silica-carbon dots (GNR@SiO₂-CDs) as a phototheranostic agent by incorporating carbon dots (CDs) with gold nanorods (GNRs), using SiO₂ as a scaffold. In GNR@SiO₂-CDs, the GNRs act as both photoacoustic (PA) imaging and photothermal therapy (PTT) agents, and the CDs serve as fluorescence (FL) imaging and photodynamic therapy (PDT) agents. The introduction of SiO₂ not only improves the chemical stability of the GNRs and CDs in the physiological environment but also prevents the absolute quenching of the fluorescence of the CDs by GNRs. These collective properties make GNR@SiO₂-CDs a novel phototheranostic agent, in which high sensitivity and good spatial resolution of FL/PA imaging can be achieved to guide PDT/PTT treatments through i.v. administration. The combination of PDT and PTT proved to be more efficient in killing cancer cells compared to PDT or PTT alone under a low dose of laser irradiation (≤0.5 W cm⁻²). Furthermore, GNR@SiO₂-CDs could be cleared out from the body of mice, indicating the low toxicity of this phototheranostic agent. Our work highlights the potential of using GNRs and CDs as novel phototheranostic agents for multifunctional cancer therapies.

Discrete unified gas-kinetic scheme (DUGKS) is a multiscale numerical method for flows from continuum limit to free molecular limit, and is especially suitable for the simulation of multiscale flows, benefiting from its multiscale property. To reduce integration error of the DUGKS and ensure the conservation property of the collision term in isothermal flow simulations, a conserved-DUGKS (C-DUGKS) is proposed. On the other hand, both DUGKS and C-DUGKS adopt Cartesian-type discrete velocity space, in which Gaussian and Newton-Cotes numerical quadrature are used for calculating the macroscopic physical variables in low-speed and high-speed flows, respectively. However, the Cartesian-type discrete velocity space leads to huge computational cost and memory demand. In this paper, the isothermal C-DUGKS is extended to the nonisothermal case by adopting coupled mass and inertial energy distribution functions. Moreover, since the unstructured mesh, such as the triangular mesh in the two-dimensional case, is more flexible than the structured Cartesian mesh, it is introduced to the discrete velocity space of C-DUGKS, such that more discrete velocity points can be arranged in the velocity regions that enclose a large number of molecules, and only a few discrete velocity points need to be arranged in the velocity regions with a small amount of molecules in it. By using the unstructured discrete velocity space, the computational efficiency of C-DUGKS is significantly increased. A series of numerical tests in a wide range of Knudsen numbers, such as the Couette flow, lid-driven cavity flow, two-dimensional rarefied Riemann problem, and the supersonic cylinder flows, are carried out to examine the validity and efficiency of the present method.

Neurodegenerative diseases are closely related to brain function and the progression of the diseases are irreversible. Due to brain tissue being not easy to acquire, the study of the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative disorders has many limitations—lack of reliable early biomarkers and personalized treatment. At the same time, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) limits most of the drug molecules into the damaged areas of the brain, which makes a big drop in the effect of drug treatment. Exosomes, a kind of endogenous nanoscale vesicles, play a key role in cell signaling through the transmission of genetic information and proteins between cells. Because of the ability to cross the BBB, exosomes are expected to link peripheral changes to central nervous system (CNS) events as potential biomarkers, and can even be used as a therapeutic carrier to deliver molecules specifically to CNS. Here we summarize the role of exosomes in pathophysiology, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of some neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Huntington’s Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).

Magnetic seizure therapy (MST) has established efficacy in the treatment of depression and a growing evidence base in the treatment of depression. We conducted the first systematic review and meta-analysis of the efficacy of MST in anti-depressive treatment and its impact on cognitive function (INPLASY registration number: INPLASY202170061). We searched for controlled trials published in English between 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2020 in PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and PsycINFO databases. The evaluation process strictly followed the Cochrane bias risk assessment tool into the literature, and Meta-analysis was performed according to the Cochrane System Reviewer’s Manual. Data from a total of 285 patients from 10 studies were retained in the quantitative synthesis. The results showed no significant difference between MST and ECT in the antidepressant effect (SDM −0.13 [−0.78;0.52]). Compared with ECT, MST showed shorter recovery time (MD −5.67 [−9.75; −1.60]) and reorientation time (MD −14.67 [−27.96; −1.41]); and MST showed less cognitive impairment on the immediate recall of words (SDM 0.80 [0.35;1.25]), delayed recall of words (SDM 0.99 [0.01;0.74]), visual-spatial immediate memory (SDM 0.51 [0.20;0.83]), visual-spatial delayed memory (SDM0.57 [0.11;1.02]), and the verbal fluency (SDM0.51 [0.20;0.83]). Our evidence-based study is the first meta-analysis on the efficacy of MST in anti-depressive treatment and its effect on cognitive function. It showed that the curative effect of MST in anti-depressive treatment is equivalent to that of ECT. Besides, depressive patients with MST benefit more from cognitive function compared with ECT.