Digital Chinese Medicine最新文献

{"title":"Effects of Liangxue Xiaofeng Powder on inflammatory responses and gut microbiota in atopic dermatitis rats with wind-dampness-heat syndrome","authors":"Jiayuan Song, Xuting Xia, Jianguo Wang, Fulin Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To investigate the potential therapeutic effects of Liangxue Xiaofeng Powder (凉血消风散, LXXFP) on atopic dermatitis (AD) rats with wind-dampness-heat syndrome, and to explore the potential mechanisms associated with inflammatory responses and gut microbiota alterations.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Active components of LXXFP and their corresponding targets were identified using the Bioinformatics Analysis Tool for Molecular mechANism of Traditional Chinese Medicine (BATMAN-TCM) database and HTDocking platform. AD-associated targets were retrieved from the DisGeNET and GeneCards databases. The overlapping targets between LXXFP and AD were identified using Perl software and visualized via a Venn diagram. Cytoscape 3.7.2 was employed to construct an LXXFP active component-AD overlapping target network. The overlapping targets were subsequently imported into the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interaction Gene/Proteins (STRING) platform to build a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, which was further visualized and analyzed using Cytoscape 3.7.2 to identify the core targets based on degree values. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were performed to preliminarily identify biological processes and signaling pathways potentially involved in the effects of LXXFP on AD. Molecular docking between the top five active components of LXXFP and the five core targets was conducted using AutoDock Vina 1.5.6. In the animal experiment, 36 female Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into six groups (<em>n</em> = 6 per group): blank, disease, syndrome, and low-, medium-, and high-dose LXXFP (LXXFP-L, LXXFP-M, and LXXFP-H, respectively) groups. The disease group was induced by 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene (DNCB) alone; the syndrome group and the three LXXFP groups were established as AD rats with wind-dampness-heat syndrome through combined climate simulation and DNCB induction. The blank, disease, and syndrome groups received an equal volume of double-distilled water by gavage daily. The LXXFP-L, LXXFP-M, and LXXFP-H groups were administered LXXFP at 1.395, 2.79, and 5.58 g/(kg·d), respectively, by gavage once daily for two consecutive weeks. Skin lesion scores were evaluated based on erythema, scales, edema, and epidermal exfoliation, and scratching frequency was recorded. Skin lesion morphology was observed using hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining and toluidine blue (TB) staining. Serum levels of high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB-1), immunoglobulin E (IgE), interleukin (IL)-17, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, IL-4, IL-1β, IL-6, and interferon (IFN)-γ were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Protein and mRNA expression levels of TNF-α, IL-4, IL-1β, IL-6, and IFN-γ in colonic tissues were determined by Western blot and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), respectively. 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) sequencing was","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 412-428"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149050973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Algorithmic consistency and feature-leakage assessment of machine learning models for traditional Chinese medicine syndrome differentiation in herpes zoster: a cross-sectional study","authors":"Huy Chung Ly, Tien Thao Ly, Dung Hoang Nguyen, Sang Thanh Do","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To evaluate whether standardized traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome labels in patients with herpes zoster can be reproduced from structured clinical variables and to determine how model performance changes after removing variables directly used to define the syndrome labels.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>This cross-sectional study included patients with clinically diagnosed herpes zoster at Le Van Thinh Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, from January 10, 2024 to June 30, 2024. Baseline TCM syndromes were assigned using standardized criteria for liver meridian depression and heat (LMDH) syndrome, spleen deficiency and dampness retention (SDDR) syndrome, and Qi stagnation and blood stasis (QSBS) syndrome. Candidate predictors were audited for feature leakage and categorized as low-, moderate-, or high-risk variables according to their degree of overlap with the criteria used to assign the syndrome labels. Three feature sets were evaluated, including a full-feature set containing all candidate variables, a leakage-reduced feature set excluding direct syndrome-defining variables, and a sensitivity feature set additionally incorporating individual Leeds Assessment of Neuropathic Symptoms and Signs (LANSS) item responses. Full-feature, leakage-reduced, and sensitivity feature sets were evaluated using repeated stratified five-fold cross-validation with five repetitions. Multinomial logistic regression, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO)-regularized multinomial logistic regression, decision tree, random forest, support vector machine with a radial basis function kernel, and class-weighted random forest were compared. Macro-F1 score was used as the primary model-selection metric due to class imbalance; balanced accuracy and Cohen’s kappa were reported as secondary evaluation metrics. Overall accuracy was additionally reported as a descriptive metric and interpreted alongside the majority-class no-information rate. Permutation testing was used to determine whether leakage-reduced model performance exceeded that expected after randomization of the syndrome labels.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>A total of 80 patients were included in the analysis. LMDH syndrome was the majority class (54/80, 67.5%), followed by SDDR syndrome (16/80, 20.0%) and QSBS syndrome (10/80, 12.5%). In the full-feature analysis, multinomial logistic regression, random forest, and support vector machine achieved an accuracy, macro-F1 score, balanced accuracy, and Cohen’s kappa of 1.000 each, which primarily reflected reproduction of predefined diagnostic rules rather than independent predictive capability. In the leakage-reduced analysis, random forest achieved an accuracy of 0.688, macro-F1 of 0.517, balanced accuracy of 0.494, and Cohen’s kappa of 0.277; class-weighted random forest achieved an accuracy of 0.575, macro-F1 of 0.504, balanced accuracy of 0.545, and Cohen’s kappa of 0.248. Class-specific recall f","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 375-386"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149056390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Protective effects of Bushen Huoxue Formula on intervertebral disc degeneration and endplate microcirculation in rats via the SIRT1/CXCL12/CXCR4/CXCR7 axis in endothelial progenitor cells","authors":"Shengqi Yang, Zhan Shen, Weifeng Zhai, Yue Xie, Yongwei Jia, Ji Guo","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To investigate the efficacy of the Bushen Huoxue Formula (补肾活血方, BSHXF) in alleviating intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD), improving endplate microcirculation, and enhancing endothelial progenitor cell (EPC) function, while investigating the potential role of the sirtuin 1 (SIRT1)/C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 12 (CXCL12)/C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4)/C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 7 (CXCR7) signaling pathway.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>This study comprised both <em>in vivo</em> and <em>in vitro</em> experiments. <em>In vivo</em>, 24 male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (4 - 6 weeks old) were used, and allocated into four groups (<em>n</em> = 6 per group): Rat-Control, Rat-Model, Rat-BSHXF, and Rat-EX527 + BSHXF groups. IVDD was induced by applying continuous axial compression (approximately 11 N) to the caudal intervertebral discs for two weeks. Following model establishment, rats in the Rat-BSHXF group received oral BSHXF at 17.71 g/(kg·d) once daily, whereas those in the Rat-EX527 + BSHXF group received the SIRT1 inhibitor EX527 at 5 mg/kg by intraperitoneal injection once daily in addition to the same BSHXF regimen for two consecutive weeks. Disc degeneration was evaluated using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Pfirrmann grading, and hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining. Endplate microvascular density was assessed via CD31 immunostaining. The mRNA expression levels of SIRT1, CXCL12, CXCR4, and CXCR7 in disc and endplate tissues were quantified using reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), whereas their protein expression levels were assessed using Western blot and immunofluorescence staining. <em>In vitro</em>, rat bone marrow-derived EPCs were isolated from a separate cohort of six SD rats, cultured, and identified via CD34/CD133 immunofluorescence staining. The EPCs were allocated into Control, BSHXF, si-SIRT1, si-SIRT1 + BSHXF, and Celecoxib groups. Cells in the BSHXF-related groups were treated with 10% BSHXF-containing serum prepared using another separate cohort of six SD rats, and SIRT1 knockdown was achieved using SIRT1 targeting small interfering RNA (si-SIRT1). EPC viability, migration, and tube formation were evaluated using cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8), transwell migration, and Matrigel tube formation assays, respectively. Additionally, the mRNA and protein expression levels of SIRT1, CXCL12, CXCR4, and CXCR7 in EPCs were measured via RT-qPCR and Western blot, respectively.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div><em>In vivo</em>, axial compression induced significant disc degeneration, characterized by reduced T2 signal intensity, decreased disc height, and Pfirrmann grade IV – V changes. Compared with the Rat-Model and Rat-EX527 + BSHXF groups, the Rat-BSHXF group exhibited less severe histological degeneration and significantly increased endplate microvascular density (<em>P</em> < 0.05). Furthermore, BSHXF significantly upregulated the mRNA and protei","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 397-411"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149056392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Task-oriented compression of resampled pulse waves for lightweight blood pressure prediction","authors":"Xiaolong Wan, Kesong Li, Xiaojun Sun, Ji Cui, Jiatuo Xu, Xiaojuan Hu","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>This study proposes a task-oriented signal compression paradigm for non-invasive blood pressure (BP) prediction, eliminating manual feature engineering through resampling to achieve a high-performance lightweight model suitable for embedded systems.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>The PDA-1 pulse diagnostic device equipped with a piezoelectric sensor was used to collect radial artery pulse waves from healthy volunteers at Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine between November 20, 2021 and November 19, 2022. The most stable 8 s segment containing multiple complete pulse cycles was extracted from each 30 s recording. Original signals (200 Hz) were resampled to 40 Hz using Fourier transform, wavelet transform (db9), and cubic spline interpolation. Three feature sets were constructed: baseline (resampled data and demographics), fusion (baseline plus handcrafted time-domain features), and handcrafted (handcrafted features and demographics) feature sets. XGBoost and random forest (RF) models were developed with Bayesian optimization for hyperparameter tuning, and evaluated using 10-fold cross-validation. Prediction accuracy was assessed against British Hypertension Society (BHS) and Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) standards, while reconstruction quality was quantified by percentage root-mean-square difference (PRD). Model evaluation and multiple comparisons among different configurations were conducted using the corresponding statistical methods. Visual and interpretability analyses were performed using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), frequency-energy distribution analysis, and wavelet multi-resolution decomposition.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>A total of 348 healthy volunteers were enrolled. XGBoost and RF models built on resampled data achieved clinically competitive performance, with XGBoost demonstrating superior accuracy and computational efficiency. The XGBoost model employing Fourier transform resampling and the baseline feature set achieved a mean absolute error (MAE) of (6.01 ± 0.94) mmHg for systolic blood pressure (SBP) and (4.60 ± 0.34) mmHg for diastolic blood pressure (DBP) on the test set, meeting BHS Grade B for SBP and BHS Grade A for DBP, as well as AAMI standards. No statistically significant differences in predictive accuracy were found among the three resampling methods (<em>P</em> > 0.05); however, their reconstruction errors differed markedly: wavelet transform exhibited the highest error (PRD = 35.52%), followed by Fourier transform (PRD = 8.87%), and interpolation the lowest (PRD = 1.33%). Compared with the baseline feature set, the fused feature set reduced SBP MAE by only 0.09 mmHg (corrected <em>P</em> > 0.05) while increasing XGBoost training time by 92.5% − 247.5% (<em>P</em> < 0.001). The handcrafted feature set achieved comparable predictive performance to the baseline, indicating that ","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 344-361"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149056394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Potential mechanisms of Lycium barbarum polysaccharides in optic nerve regeneration based on network pharmacology, single-cell transcriptomic analysis, and molecular docking","authors":"Min Ai, Lixuan Tang, Jun Peng, Yijing Yang, Jing Xiong, Qinghua Peng, Li Xiao","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.011","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To identify the potential molecular mechanisms mediating the role of <em>Lycium barbarum</em> polysaccharides (LBPs) in optic nerve regeneration (ONR) through an integrated approach that combines network pharmacology, single-cell RNA sequencing, and molecular docking.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>The monosaccharide composition of LBPs was systematically characterized, and potential target genes of each LBPs component were predicted using the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP), SwissTargetPrediction, and SuperPred databases. Disease-related targets associated with ONR were retrieved from the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) and GeneCards databases. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of the overlapping targets was established via the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING) database, and a “drug-disease-target” regulatory network was constructed using Cytoscape software. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were conducted using the Metascape platform to elucidate the potential signaling pathways through which LBPs mediate ONR. Seurat software was used to analyze mouse retinal single-cell RNA sequencing data (GSE137398) retrieved from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database to evaluate the expression distribution and cellular heterogeneity of the core PPI network targets across different retinal cell clusters. Molecular docking analysis was performed to verify the binding affinity between the core monosaccharide components of LBPs and the key regulatory targets identified from the PPI network.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>A total of 329 predicted targets associated with LBPs monosaccharide components and 8 930 ONR-related targets were identified, yielding 272 overlapping targets. PPI network analysis identified heat shock protein 90 α family class A member 1 (HSP90AA1), heat shock protein 90 α family class B member 1 (HSP90AB1), mitogen-activated protein kinase 3 (MAPK3), hypoxia-inducible factor 1 subunit alpha (HIF1A), nuclear factor kappa B subunit 1 (NFKB1), and mechanistic target of rapamycin kinase (MTOR) as the top six core targets ranked by degree value. Drug-disease-target network topology analysis indicated that xylose, α-L-arabinose, β-D-glucosamine, galactose, and α-D-mannose were the top five principal monosaccharide components with the highest connectivity. GO enrichment analysis showed that the overlapping targets were mainly involved in positive regulation of the extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) cascade, positive regulation of MAPK activity, cellular response to hypoxia, negative regulation of inflammatory response, and cytosolic calcium ion release. KEGG analysis demonstrated significant enrichment in the HIF-1, neurotrophin, MAPK, phosphoinositide 3-kinase-protein kinase B (PI3K-Akt), calcium, cyclic adenosine monoph","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 458-470"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149056518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The molecular mechanisms of Liuwei Dihuang Decoction in improving cognitive dysfunction in D-galactose-induced aged mice revealed by an lncRNA‒miRNA‒mRNA network analysis","authors":"Lisong Li, Jian Yi, Bowei Chen, Yin Ouyang, Fanzuo Zeng, Yaqian Xu, Baiyan Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To elucidate the potential mechanisms by which Liuwei Dihuang Decoction (六味地黄汤, LWDHD) ameliorates D-galactose (D-gal)-induced cognitive impairment in aged mice through a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA)-micro RNA (miRNA)-messenger RNA (mRNA) regulatory network analysis.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>A total of 70 specific pathogen-free (SPF) male C57BL/6 mice (weighing 18 − 22 g) were randomly divided into control, model, low-dose LWDHD (LWDHD-L), high-dose LWDHD (LWDHD-H), and positive control (vitamin E) groups (<em>n</em> = 14 per group). An aged mouse model was established by subcutaneous injection of D-gal (100 mg/kg) once daily for 6 weeks. During this period, the LWDHD-L and LWDHD-H groups were administered LWDHD at doses of 10 and 20 g/kg, respectively, while the vitamin E group received 200 mg/kg of vitamin E by gavage at 10 mL/kg once daily. The Morris water maze (MWM) test was used to assess behavioral changes in mice. A navigation test was conducted on day 5 to record escape latency, and a probe trial was performed on day 6 to record the number of platform crossings and the time spent in the target quadrant. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining was used to observe pathological changes in the hippocampus. Immunohistochemistry was used to assess the expression levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and ionized calcium-binding adaptor molecule 1 (IBA1) in the hippocampus to evaluate the efficacy of LWDHD treatment. Based on the efficacy results, the control, model, and LWDHD-H groups were selected for microarray analysis. Differentially expressed lncRNAs, miRNAs, and mRNAs were screened according to predefined fold-change and statistical significance criteria. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were subsequently performed. Three LWDHD-H-regulated miRNAs were selected as core nodes. Their upstream lncRNAs and downstream mRNAs were predicted using starBase/miRcode and TargetScan/miRDB/miRTarBase, respectively, and candidate interactions were further screened by expression-correlation analysis and the Multiple Target MiRNA (MuTaMe) method. Significant lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory relationships were integrated and visualized using Cytoscape. The relative expression levels of three lncRNAs (NONMMUT096619.1, NONMMUT108543.1, and NONMMUT051216.2), three miRNAs (mmu-miR-764-5p, mmu-miR-300-5p, and mmu-miR-8102), and three mRNAs (Itgb4, Dnmt3a, and Abca8a) in the control, model, and LWDHD-H groups were measured by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to validate the microarray results. In addition, the levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-1β, and IL-6 in the hippocampus and serum of aged mice were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to evaluate the inhibitory effects of LWDHD on inflammatory cytokines.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>For behavioral assessment, mice in the mode","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 442-457"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149056391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Regulation of oocyte meiosis and reproductive function by Bushen Tiaojing Decoction through the APC/C-CDC20 signaling pathway in aged mice","authors":"Li Li, Yu Xi, Yucong Ma, Yu Zhang, Yajing Song, Lingkan Chi, Huilan Du","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To investigate the effects of Bushen Tiaojing Decoction (补肾调经汤, BSTJD) on oocyte meiotic progression and reproductive function in aged mice, and to explore the potential involvement of the anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C)-cell division cycle 20 (CDC20)-related signaling pathway in these effects.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>A total of 105 female Kunming mice were used, including 35 young mice aged 8 – 10 weeks and 70 old mice aged 36 – 40 weeks. The young mice constituted the young group, whereas the old mice were randomly assigned to the old group or the old + BSTJD group (<em>n</em> = 35 per group). In addition, 10 male Kunming mice were used as mating partners for fertility assessment. Mice in the old + BSTJD group received BSTJD by oral gavage at 20 g/(kg·d), divided into two equal doses, for 10 consecutive weeks, whereas mice in the young and old groups received equal volumes of sterile distilled water. Body weight and body length of mice were measured to calculate Lee’s index, and vaginal cytology was performed to evaluate estrous cyclicity. Serum anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) level, ovarian morphology, preantral and antral follicle numbers, germinal vesicle (GV)- and metaphase II (MII)-stage oocyte numbers, and litter size were evaluated to assess reproductive function. Immunofluorescence staining and reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) were used to determine the protein and mRNA expression levels of CDC20, cell division cycle 26 (CDC26), and extra spindle pole bodies like 1 (ESPL1) in GV-, metaphase I (MI)-, and MII-stage oocytes, and spindle/chromosomal morphology and abnormal spindle rates were assessed. To further evaluate the involvement of APC/C-related signaling, GV-stage cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) from the mice of the young, old, and old + BSTJD groups were subjected to <em>in vitro</em> maturation (IVM) in the presence or absence of the APC/C inhibitor tosyl-L-arginine methyl ester (TAME), followed by assessment of oocyte maturation and spindle morphology. In a complementary experiment, 10 female Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were used to prepare blank serum and BSTJD-containing serum. GV-stage COCs from the old group were cultured with blank serum or BSTJD-containing serum, with or without TAME, and the MII maturation rate was determined.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Lee’s index did not differ significantly among the young, old, and old + BSTJD groups (<em>P</em> > 0.05). Compared with the old group, the old + BSTJD group showed improved estrous cyclicity and significantly increased numbers of preantral follicles, antral follicles, GV-stage oocytes, and MII-stage oocytes, as well as increased litter size (<em>P</em> < 0.05). Although serum AMH level was higher in the old + BSTJD group than in the old group, the difference was not statistically significant (<em>P</em> > 0.05). Compared with the old group, the old + BSTJD group showed","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 429-441"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149056396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Study on the dose-efficacy relationship of Dahuang (Rhei Radix et Rhizoma) based on fuzzy association rules","authors":"Meng Li, Fangzhou Liu, Yu Du, Yihao Li, Yuanbai Li, Yang Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.012","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.012","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To investigate the dose-efficacy relationship of Dahuang (Rhei Radix et Rhizoma) using fuzzy association rules, provide scientific evidence for its precise clinical application, and establish a novel paradigm for research on the dose-efficacy relationship of Chinese materia medica (CMM).</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>A total of 2 449 prescriptions with Dahuang (Rhei Radix et Rhizoma) as the sovereign drug and with explicit dosage records were screened from the Traditional Chinese Medicine Ancient Prescription Database. Efficacy terminology was standardized and consolidated, dosage units were uniformly converted into metric units (g) according to their respective dynasties, and a Dahuang (Rhei Radix et Rhizoma) dose-efficacy prescription database was constructed. The prescriptions were divided into six groups according to patient age and route of administration; the internal-use adults group (<em>n</em> = 1 828), the internal-use children group (<em>n</em> = 280), and the external-use adults group (<em>n</em> = 272) were included in the analysis, while the other three groups were excluded owing to insufficient sample sizes. Dosages were partitioned into small, medium, and large fuzzy intervals at an approximate equal-frequency ratio of 2 : 6 : 2, triangular membership functions were defined to fuzzify the dosage data, and a fuzzy association rule mining algorithm was applied to mine the dose-efficacy relationships.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>The dosage of Dahuang (Rhei Radix et Rhizoma) exhibited a decreasing trend across dynasties, with a relatively large dose being commonly used during the Han and Tang-Song periods, gradually approaching modern clinical dosages from the Ming-Qing period onward. In the internal-use adults group, small doses were mainly associated with reducing swelling, unblocking the channels, descending Qi, resolving toxins, and enhancing medicinal potency; medium doses were associated with clearing heat, purging, and dispersing wind; and large doses were associated with breaking blood, attacking heat, and expelling pus. In the external-use adults group, small doses were mainly associated with reducing swelling, relieving pain, and promoting tissue regeneration; medium doses were associated with clearing heat and drying dampness, dissipating masses, and reducing swelling; and large doses were associated with expelling pus and promoting tissue regeneration, healing sores, and strengthening teeth. In the internal-use children group, small doses were dominated by clearing heat, resolving toxins, and purging; medium doses centered on relieving jaundice, eliminating sores, and clearing lung heat; and large doses leaned toward killing parasites, clearing phlegm, and eliminating food accumulation.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>Using fuzzy association rules, this study quantitatively elucidated the dose-efficacy relationships of Dahuang (Rhei Radix et Rhizoma) for internal and exte","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 471-480"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149056447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"TCM-HyperRAG: higher-order knowledge hypergraphs for disease diagnosis and prescription recommendation in traditional Chinese medicine","authors":"Weilin Chen, Shaoqiang Ye, Hui Zhou, Diwen Kang, Lihua Qin, Kaiqing Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To address the limitations of knowledge graphs in modeling higher-order associations in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) knowledge and distinguishing the importance of different entities, we propose a weighted knowledge hypergraph-enhanced framework for intelligent assistance in TCM diagnosis and prescription recommendation.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>We developed TCM-HyperRAG, a weighted knowledge hypergraph-based method, and validated it using a publicly available TCM Supervised Fine-Tuning (TCM-SFT) dataset. DeepSeek-V3 extracted disease/syndrome, symptom, and herb entities from <styled-content style-type=\"number\">18901</styled-content> disease-diagnosis records and <styled-content style-type=\"number\">9290</styled-content> prescription-recommendation records to construct the weighted hypergraph. The corresponding retrieval strategy then provided the backbone large language models (LLMs) with structured and traceable evidence. The framework was tested on two held-out sets of 500 previously unseen records for disease diagnosis and prescription recommendation, respectively. LLM-only inference, standard RAG, four GraphRAG modes, and TCM-HyperRAG were compared using HuatuoGPT-o1, Llama3.1-8B, Qwen3-8B, GLM4-9B, DeepSeek-V3, and Qwen3-Max as backbone LLMs. Disease diagnosis was evaluated using mean reciprocal rank (MRR) and hit rate at <em>k</em> (H@<em>k</em>, <em>k</em> ∈ {1, 3, 5}), whereas prescription recommendation was evaluated using precision at <em>k</em> (P@<em>k</em>), recall at <em>k</em> (R@<em>k</em>), and F1 score at <em>k</em> (F1@<em>k</em>), where <em>k</em> ∈ {5, 10, 20}. Repeated experiments assessed performance stability, and ablation experiments examined the contribution of the importance weights.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>TCM-HyperRAG achieved competitive results on both tasks. For disease diagnosis, it obtained the highest MRR with Llama3.1-8B, GLM4-9B, DeepSeek-V3, and Qwen3-Max, and an average MRR of 0.638, higher than 0.571 for LLM-only inference and 0.486 for the GraphRAG variants. For prescription recommendation, TCM-HyperRAG achieved the highest R@20 with all six backbone LLMs, averaging 0.544 versus 0.496 for GraphRAG + Mix. In the repeated experiments with Qwen3-Max, TCM-HyperRAG obtained the highest mean MRR, H@3, and H@5, reaching <styled-content style-type=\"number\">0.7691</styled-content>, <styled-content style-type=\"number\">0.8625</styled-content>, and <styled-content style-type=\"number\">0.9118</styled-content>, respectively, indicating stable performance. Removing entity importance weights reduced the average disease-diagnosis MRR from 0.638 to 0.629 and the average prescription-recommendation F1@10 from 0.438 to 0.425, indicating a positive overall contribution from importance-aware weighting.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>By preserving multi-entity relations and prioritizing evidence with gre","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 362-374"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149056393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Developing a diagnostic model for spleen-stomach damp-heat syndrome in chronic gastritis patients using hyperspectral tongue imaging","authors":"Nan Jiang, Hui Xu, Bin Cheng, Jiangen Zhao, Changwu Dong","doi":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcmed.2026.08.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To construct a diagnostic model for spleen-stomach damp-heat syndrome in patients with chronic gastritis (CG) based on hyperspectral tongue imaging data, and to investigate the diagnostic value of hyperspectral tongue imaging in identifying spleen-stomach damp-heat syndrome in CG patients.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Using the prototype V3.0 image-spectral data collection device, intelligent tongue surface observations were conducted on CG patients at The Mingyi Hall of The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui University of Chinese Medicine between September 4, 2024 and October 29, 2025. Patients were categorized into spleen-stomach damp-heat syndrome and non-spleen-stomach damp-heat syndrome groups, and randomly assigned to a training set and an internal validation set at a ratio of 7 : 3. Following preprocessing and segmentation of the tongue images, wavelength-specific spectral features were extracted. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm was applied for dimensionality reduction and feature selection of hyperspectral tongue features, and a diagnostic model was constructed based on the selected features. Pearson correlation analysis was performed to assess the correlation between the diagnostic model and clinical data, including tongue and pulse manifestations, symptoms, gastroscopic findings, and lifestyle habits. The diagnostic performance of the model was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). Five-fold cross-validation was performed on the internal validation set to calculate the mean AUC. Bootstrap calibration curves and decision curve analysis (DCA) based on 500 resamples were performed to evaluate model calibration and clinical net benefit.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>A total of 383 CG patients were enrolled and classified into the spleen-stomach damp-heat syndrome group (<em>n</em> = 219) and the non-spleen-stomach damp-heat syndrome group (<em>n</em> = 164). The LASSO algorithm identified nine hyperspectral tongue features for inclusion in the diagnostic model. The diagnostic model was significantly correlated with 13 clinical variables (<em>P</em> < 0.05). It was positively correlated with yellow greasy coating, and negatively correlated with thin white coating, yellow coating, and scanty or absent coating (<em>P</em> < 0.001). It was positively correlated with slippery and rapid pulse, and negatively correlated with thready and rapid pulse and wiry pulse (<em>P</em> < 0.001). Diagnostic model was positively correlated with male sex, alcohol consumption, smoking, chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) diagnosed by gastroscopy, heaviness of the body, and sticky stools (<em>P</em> < 0.05, <em>P</em> < 0.01, or <em>P</em> < 0.001). Model validation yielded an AUC of 0.777, an accuracy of <style","PeriodicalId":33578,"journal":{"name":"Digital Chinese Medicine","volume":"9 3","pages":"Pages 387-396"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149050972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}