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Approaches in studying the pharmacology of Chinese Medicine formulas: bottom-up, top-down—and meeting in the middle

Overview of attention for article published in Chinese Medicine, March 2018
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (78th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (78th percentile)

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1 news outlet
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1 X user

Citations

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15 Dimensions

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22 Mendeley
Title
Approaches in studying the pharmacology of Chinese Medicine formulas: bottom-up, top-down—and meeting in the middle
Published in
Chinese Medicine, March 2018
DOI 10.1186/s13020-018-0170-4
Pubmed ID
Authors

Tao Huang, Linda L. D. Zhong, Chen-Yuan Lin, Ling Zhao, Zi-Wan Ning, Dong-Dong Hu, Man Zhang, Ke Tian, Chung-Wah Cheng, Zhao-Xiang Bian, for MZRW Research Group

Abstract

Investigating the pharmacology is key to the modernization of Chinese Medicine (CM) formulas. However, identifying which are the active compound(s) of CM formulas, which biological entities they target, and through which signaling pathway(s) they act to modify disease symptoms, are still difficult tasks for researchers, even when equipped with an arsenal of advanced modern technologies. Multiple approaches, including network pharmacology, pharmaco-genomics, -proteomics, and -metabolomics, have been developed to study the pharmacology of CM formulas. They fall into two general categories in terms of how they tackle a problem: bottom-up and top-down. In this article, we compared these two different approaches in several dimensions by using the case of MaZiRenWan (MZRW, also known as Hemp Seed Pill), a CM herbal formula for functional constipation. Multiple hypotheses are easy to be proposed in the bottom-up approach (e.g. network pharmacology); but these hypotheses are usually false positives and hard to be tested. In contrast, it is hard to suggest hypotheses in the top-down approach (e.g. pharmacometabolomics); however, once a hypothesis is proposed, it is much easier to be tested. Merging of these two approaches could results in a powerful approach, which could be the new paradigm for the pharmacological study of CM formulas.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 22 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 22 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 6 27%
Researcher 3 14%
Lecturer 2 9%
Student > Bachelor 2 9%
Other 2 9%
Other 6 27%
Unknown 1 5%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 5 23%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 5 23%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 3 14%
Nursing and Health Professions 2 9%
Unspecified 1 5%
Other 2 9%
Unknown 4 18%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 April 2018.
All research outputs
#3,711,927
of 25,382,440 outputs
Outputs from Chinese Medicine
#67
of 660 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#73,180
of 347,622 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Chinese Medicine
#3
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,382,440 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 85th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 660 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.0. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 347,622 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its contemporaries.