Search results for " VAR"

Vaccination and Vaccine Effectiveness: A Commentary of Special Issue Editors

2020

The Special Issue “Vaccination and Vaccine Effectiveness”, published in the journal Vaccines, has the main aim to increase international literature data on vaccine effectiveness and safety and on vaccination strategies in order to reduce vaccine hesitancy and improve vaccination coverage rates. The main topics included in the call for papers were vaccines administered to infants, adolescents, adults, elderly people, at-risk populations (due to comorbidities and personal risk factors) and healthcare workers and strategies adopted to promote vaccination adherence among these categories. This Special Issue started from the assumption that, despite vaccination being universally recognized as on…

Toward evidence-based severity assessment in rat models with repeated seizures: III. Electrical post-status epilepticus model

2019

Objective Ethical approval of experiments in chronic epilepsy models requires a careful balancing of the expected gain-in-knowledge with the level of distress. Thus recommendations for evidence-based severity assessment and classification are urgently needed for preclinical epilepsy research. Methods Therefore, we have completed a comprehensive analysis of alterations in behavioral, biochemical, and physiological parameters in a rat electrical post-status epilepticus model. Selected parameters were repeatedly analyzed during different experimental phases to obtain information about the level of distress throughout the course of the model. Results Behavioral patterns comprised an increase in…

Neither Cathodal nor Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on the Left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex alone or Applied During Moderate Aerob…

2020

There is converging evidence that both aerobic exercise (AE) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can acutely modulate executive functions (EF). In addition, recent studies have proposed the beneficial effects of applying tDCS during AE on physical performance. This study aimed to investigate whether tDCS applied during an AE session additionally or differently effects EF. Therefore, five experiments were conducted in a counterbalanced pre-post-retention crossover design to explore the acute effects of tDCS and AE on EF (inhibition and updating) once in isolation (i.e., either cathodal, anodal tDCS or AE alone as controls) and once in a combined application (i.e., anodal and c…

2018

There are two important gaps of knowledge in depression treatment, namely the lack of biomarkers predicting response to antidepressants and the limited knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying clinical improvement. However, individually tailored treatment strategies and individualized prescription are greatly needed given the huge socio-economic burden of depression, the latency until clinical improvement can be observed and the response variability to a particular compound. Still, individual patient-level antidepressant treatment outcomes are highly unpredictable. In contrast to other therapeutic areas and despite tremendous efforts during the past years, the genomics era so far ha…

Association of Non-Invasive Markers of Liver Fibrosis with HCV Coinfection and Antiretroviral Therapy in Patients with HIV

2019

Abstract The aim of this study was to assess the main effects and interaction between viral hepatitis C (HCV) coinfection and antiretroviral therapy (ART) by using a nonparametric ANOVA on direct and indirect markers of liver fibrosis in HIV-infected patients. The sample included 178 HIV patients aged from 23 to 65 (36% females). The following parameters were determined in blood of patients: hyaluronic acid, pro-matrix metalloproteinase-1, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, and platelet count. The FIB-4 index was also calculated. The nonparametric ANOVA revealed no significant interaction between HCV coinfection and ART. This provides evidence for an independent contribut…

Modulation of Heart Rate by Acute or Chronic Aerobic Exercise. Potential Effects on Blood Pressure Control.

2017

It was initially assumed that heart rate and arterial blood pressure were modulated by normal respiration and muscle contraction. The arterial baroreflex, an inverse relationship between blood pressure and heart rate, was later reported. Nonetheless, it was then assumed that those responses involved vagal modulation. We summarize available evidence on the modulation of heart rate by acute or chronic aerobic exercise as well as its potential implications on blood pressure (BP) control. Numerous studies have tried to clarify whether aerobic exercise modifies neurally-mediated vasoconstriction, but they report contradictory results. In view of these incongruities, the aim of this narrative rev…

Seeding nerve sutures with minced nerve-graft (MINE-G): a simple method to improve nerve regeneration in rats

2017

Background: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of seeding the distal nerve suture with nerve fragments in rats. Methods: On 20 rats, a 15 mm sciatic nerve defect was reconstructed with a nerve autograft. In the Study Group (10 rats), a minced 1 mm nerve segment was seeded around the nerve suture. In the Control Group (10 rats), a nerve graft alone was used. At 4 and 12 weeks, a walking track analysis with open field test (WTA), hystomorphometry (number of myelinated fibers (n), fiber density (FD) and fiber area (FA) and soleus and gastrocnemius muscle weight ratios (MWR) were evaluated. The Student t-test was used for statistical analysis. Results: At 4 and 12 weeks the Study Gr…

Gene variants of osteoprotegerin, estrogen-, calcitonin- and vitamin D-receptor genes and serum markers of bone metabolism in patients with Gaucher d…

2018

Anca Zimmermann,1 Radu A Popp,2 Heidi Rossmann,3 Simona Bucerzan,4 Ioana Nascu,4 Daniel Leucuta,5 Matthias M Weber,1 Paula Grigorescu-Sido41Department of Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases, 1st Clinic and Polyclinic of Internal Medicine, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany; 2Department of Medical Genetics, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; 3Institute for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany; 4Center of Genetic Diseases, 1st Pediatric Clinic, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; 5Department of Medical Informatics and Biostatistics, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, RomaniaPurpose: Oste…

Hippocampal theta phase-contingent memory retrieval in delay and trace eyeblink conditioning

2017

Hippocampal theta oscillations (3-12Hz) play a prominent role in learning. It has been suggested that encoding and retrieval of memories are supported by different phases of the theta cycle. Our previous study on trace eyeblink conditioning in rabbits suggests that the timing of the conditioned stimulus (CS) in relation to theta phase affects encoding but not retrieval of the memory trace. Here, we directly tested the effects of hippocampal theta phase on memory retrieval in two experiments conducted on adult female New Zealand White rabbits. In Experiment 1, animals were trained in trace eyeblink conditioning followed by extinction, and memory retrieval was tested by presenting the CS at t…

Genotyping strategy of SMAD-3 rs3825977 gene variant for a differential management of ascending aorta aneurysm in women people: Gender oriented diagn…

2020

Abstract Background and objectives The research of opportune strategies for facilitating the management of complex pathologies, such as ascending aorta aneurysm (AAA), currently represents the principal object of clinicians, clinical pathologists included. Herein, we propose genotyping of gene variants related to TGF-β pathway as useful strategy to improve the complex AAA management, exclusively based on imaging evaluations. Precisely, we investigated four functional SNPs in SMAD and VEGF genes, encoding molecules able to modulate functions and cross-talks of TGF-β pathway. Populations and methods Our study included 92 individuals (70 men (76%) and 22 (24%) women; mean age: 71.4 ± 2.6 years…