We report the availability of a digitized Chinese male and a digitzed Chinese female typical of the population and with no obvious abnormalities. The embalming and milling procedures incorporate three technical improvements over earlier digitized cadavers. Vascular perfusion with coloured gelatin was performed to facilitate blood vessel identification. Embalmed cadavers were embedded in gelatin and cryosectioned whole so as to avoid section loss resulting from cutting the body into smaller pieces. Milling performed at -25 degrees C prevented small structures (e.g. teeth, concha nasalis and articular cartilage) from falling off from the milling surface. The male image set (.tiff images each of 36 Mb) has a section resolution of 3072 x 2048 pixels ( approximately 170 micro m, the accompanying magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography data have a resolution of 512 x 512, i.e. approximately 440 micro m). The Chinese Visible Human male and female datasets are available at http://www.chinesevisiblehuman.com. (The male is 90.65 Gb and female 131.04 Gb). MPEG videos of direct records of real-time volume rendering are at: http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~crc

BackgroundEmerging studies have demonstrated the important physiological and pathophysiological roles of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) as a gasotransmitter for NOD-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome-associated neuroinflammation in the central nervous system. However, the effects of H2S on neuroinflammation after intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH), especially on the NLRP3 inflammasome, remain unknown.MethodsWe employed a Sprague–Dawley rat of collagenase-induced ICH in the present study. The time course of H2S content and the spatial expression of cystathionine-β-synthase (CBS) after ICH, the effects of endogenous and exogenous H2S after ICH, the effects of endogenous and exogenous H2S on NLRP3 inflammasome activation under P2X7 receptor (P2X7R) overexpression after ICH, and the involvement of the P2X7R in the mechanism by which microglia-derived H2S prevented NLRP3 inflammasome activation were investigated.ResultsWe found ICH induced significant downregulation of endogenous H2S production in the brain, which may be the result of decreasing in CBS, the predominant cerebral H2S-generating enzyme. Administration of S-adenosyl-l-methionine (SAM), a CBS-specific agonist, or sodium hydrosulfide (NaHS), a classical exogenous H2S donor, not only restored brain and plasma H2S content but also attenuated brain oedema, microglial accumulation and neurological deficits at 1 day post-ICH by inhibiting the P2X7R/NLRP3 inflammasome cascade. Endogenous H2S production, which was derived mainly by microglia and above treatments, was verified by adenovirus-overexpressed P2X7R and in vitro primary microglia studies.ConclusionsThese results indicated endogenous H2S synthesis was impaired after ICH, which plays a pivotal role in the P2X7R/NLRP3 inflammasome-associated neuroinflammatory response in the pathogenesis of secondary brain injury. Maintaining appropriate H2S concentrations in the central nervous system may represent a potential therapeutic strategy for managing post-ICH secondary brain injury and associated neurological deficits.

Treatment with human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells can facilitate functional recovery after traumatic spinal cord injury and may prove to be a useful therapeutic strategy to repair the injured spinal cord.

Neural stem/progenitor cells (NSPCs) replacement therapies are the most attractive strategies to restore an injured brain. Key challenges of such therapies are enriching NSPCs and directing them differentiation into specific neural cell types. Here, three biomaterial substrates Poly-L-ornithine (PO), Poly-L-lysine (PLL) and fibronectin (FN) were investigated for their effects on proliferation and differentiation of rat NSPCs, and the underlying mechanisms were also explored. The results showed PO significantly increased NSPCs proliferation and induced preferred differentiation, compared with PLL and FN. Checking protein markers of several neural cell subtypes, it is showed PO significantly induced NSPCs expressing Doublecortin (DCX) and Olig2, one for neuroblasts and young neurons and the other for young oligodendrocytes. It is suggested the ERK signaling pathway was involving in this process because an ERK antagonist U0126 could inhibit PO’s effects mentioned above, as well as an ERK pathway agonist Ceramide C6 could enhance them. Given that both neurons and oligodendrocytes are the most vulnerable cells in many neurological diseases, PO-induced preferred differentiation into neurons and oligodendrocytes is a potential paradigm for NSPCs-based therapies.