With the increasing aging worldwide, the age-related neurodegenerative diseases are becoming more and more prevalent. Brain age, as a critical biological marker for assessing normal brain aging and indicating disease progression, has been widely applied in the early diagnosis and evaluation of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease (PD). This paper systematically elaborates on three types of methods for PD brain age prediction: statistical methods, traditional Machine learning (ML), and Deep learning (DL), from the perspectives of methodological overview and clinical application of PD brain age predication. For the first aspect, the PD brain age prediction workflow, statistical methods, ML methods, and DL methods are sequentially outlined; in the second aspect, the current clinical application status of the three types of PD brain age prediction methods is introduced. Finally, a summary and outlook are provided. This review not only provides important references for research on PD brain age prediction, but also offers novel approaches for evaluating human brain health, thus holding significant scientific and clinical value.
Objective To assess the effect of astragaulus membranaceus in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. Methods Through applying the methods provided by the Cochrane Collaboration, the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or quasi-RCTs of astragaulus membranaceus in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis were searched in The Cochrane Library (Issue 3, 2010), CNKI (1991 to May 2010), VIP (1989 to May 2010), EMbase (1981 to May 2010), and PubMed (1981 to May 2010). Two reviewers independently screened the included studies, extracted the data, assessed the quality, and cross checked then. The RevMan 5.0 software was used to conduct meta-analyses. Results Twelve RCTs involving 1 054 patients were included. All trials were tested in the mainland China. The results of meta-analyses showed that: a) The astragaulus membranaceus could assist the conventional drug to cure pulmonary tuberculosis, promote sputum negative conversion, focal absorption and cavity reduction in lung; b) The astragaulus membranaceus could reduce the adverse reactions of the conventional drug; c) The astragaulus membranaceus combined with the conventional drug could improve the patients’ symptoms and signs; and d) The astragaulus membranaceus combined with the conventional drug could reduce the bacterial relapse rates in follow-up after treatment. Conclusion The current evidence shows that the astragaulus membranaceus has some effects and is relatively safe to treat pulmonary tuberculosis. However, it is far from enough to recommend astragaulus membranaceus as a conventional adjuvant therapy for pulmonary tuberculosis because of no sufficient evidence obtained from this study for its small sample and low methodology quality. Therefore, more double-blind multi-center RCTs with high quality, large sample, and adequate follow up are required for further verification.