Search results for "Physical Stimulation"
showing 10 items of 79 documents
Within-session sensitization and between-session habituation: A robust physiological response to repetitive painful heat stimulation
2011
Habituation and sensitization are important behavioural responses to repeated exposure of painful stimuli. Whereas within-session response dynamics to nociceptive stimuli is well characterized, little is known about long-term behaviour due to repetitive nociceptive stimulation. We used a standardized longitudinal heat pain paradigm in 66 healthy participants, 21 patients with chronic low back pain and 22 patients with depression who received daily sessions of 60 suprathreshold heat stimuli (48 °C each) for eight consecutive days. All three groups showed the same response: Repeated painful stimulation over several days resulted in substantially decreased pain ratings to identical painful sti…
Nanocarriers for optimizing the balance between interfollicular permeation and follicular uptake of topically applied clobetasol to minimize adverse …
2015
The treatment of various hair disorders has become a central focus of good dermatologic patient care as it affects men and women all over the world. For many inflammatory-based scalp diseases, glucocorticoids are an essential part of treatment, even though they are known to cause systemic as well as local adverse effects when applied topically. Therefore, efficient targeting and avoidance of these side effects are of utmost importance. Optimizing the balance between drug release, interfollicular permeation, and follicular uptake may allow minimizing these adverse events and simultaneously improve drug delivery, given that one succeeds in targeting a sustained release formulation to the hair…
Potential Benefits and Limitations of Enriched Environments and Cognitive Activity on Age-Related Behavioural Decline
2011
The main aim of this chapter is to review preclinical studies that have evaluated interventions which may aid in preventing or delaying age-related behavioural decline. Animal models of Environmental Enrichment (EE) are useful for evaluating the influence of cognitive, physical and social stimulation in mitigating cognitive decline at different ages. The EE paradigm has been proposed as a non-invasive treatment for alleviating age-related memory impairment and neurodegenerative diseases. While in this complex environment, rodents can be stimulated at different levels (physical, social, cognitive and sensorial), although a synergism between all these components is likely to play an important…
Effects of Anandamide and Noxious Heat on Intracellular Calcium Concentration in Nociceptive DRG Neurons of Rats
2007
As an endogenous agonist at the cannabinoid receptor CB1 and the capsaicin-receptor TRPV1, anandamide may exert both anti- and pronociceptive actions. Therefore we studied the effects of anandamide and other activators of both receptors on changes in free cytosolic calcium ([Ca2+]i) in acutely dissociated small dorsal root ganglion neurons (diameter: ≤30 μm). Anandamide (10 μM) increased [Ca2+]iin 76% of the neurons. The EC50was 7.41 μM, the Hill slope was 2.15 ± 0.43 (mean ± SE). This increase was blocked by the competitive TRPV1-antagonist capsazepine (10 μM) and in Ca2+-free extracellular solution. Neither exclusion of voltage-gated sodium channels nor additional blockade of voltage-gate…
Antihyperalgesic and analgesic properties of the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist neramexane in a human surrogate model of neurogenic …
2006
Abstract NMDA-receptors are a major target in the prevention and treatment of hyperalgesic pain states in neuropathic pain. However, previous studies revealed equivocal results depending on study design and efficacy parameters. We tested the analgesic (generalized reduction of generation and processing of nociceptive signalling) and anti-hyperalgesic (prevention of central sensitization) properties of the NMDA-receptor antagonist neramexane and the potassium channel opener flupirtine in the intradermal capsaicin injection model. Furthermore, we tested the effect on pain summation (wind up). Eighteen healthy subjects received either a single dose of neramexane (40 mg p.o.), flupirtine (100 m…
Optogenetic Modulation of a Minor Fraction of Parvalbumin-Positive Interneurons Specifically Affects Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Spontaneous and Senso…
2017
Abstract Parvalbumin (PV) positive interneurons exert strong effects on the neocortical excitatory network, but it remains unclear how they impact the spatiotemporal dynamics of sensory processing in the somatosensory cortex. Here, we characterized the effects of optogenetic inhibition and activation of PV interneurons on spontaneous and sensory-evoked activity in mouse barrel cortex in vivo. Inhibiting PV interneurons led to a broad-spectrum power increase both in spontaneous and sensory-evoked activity. Whisker-evoked responses were significantly increased within 20 ms after stimulus onset during inhibition of PV interneurons, demonstrating high temporal precision of PV-shaped inhibition.…
The Effectiveness of an Oral Sensorimotor Stimulation Protocol for the Early Achievement of Exclusive Oral Feeding in Premature Infants. A Randomized…
2019
Aims: This study is aimed to investigate the effectiveness of an oral stimulation protocol in preterm infants compared to usual care, to reduce the time for achieving safe full oral feeding.Methods: 47 preterm infants (25- 30 weeks of gestational age) were randomized into two groups. Babies of the EG (n = 24) received a 10-minute oral stimulation protocol while the CG (n = 23) received the standard care. The primary outcome were the days from the initiation of the intervention until the achievement of full oral feeding. Secondary outcomes were: days from the first day the intervention started until achieving a first oral intake of 30% in the first 5 minutes, days from the first day the inte…
Evidence of beat perception via purely tactile stimulation
2008
Humans can easily tap in synchrony with an auditory beat but not with an equivalent visual rhythmic sequence, suggesting that the sensation of meter (i.e. of an underlying regular pulse) may be inherently auditory. We assessed whether the perception of meter could also be felt with tactile sensory inputs. We found that, when participants were presented with identical rhythmic sequences filled with either short tones or hand stimulations, they could more efficiently tap in synchrony with strongly rather than weakly metric sequences. These observations suggest that non-musician adults can extract the metric structure of purely tactile rhythms and use it to tap regularly with the beat induced …
Comparing MEG and EEG in detecting the ~20-Hz rhythm modulation to tactile and proprioceptive stimulation
2020
Abstract Modulation of the ~20-Hz brain rhythm has been used to evaluate the functional state of the sensorimotor cortex both in healthy subjects and patients, such as stroke patients. The ~20-Hz brain rhythm can be detected by both magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG), but the comparability of these methods has not been evaluated. Here, we compare these two methods in the evaluating of ~20-Hz activity modulation to somatosensory stimuli. Rhythmic ~20-Hz activity during separate tactile and proprioceptive stimulation of the right and left index finger was recorded simultaneously with MEG and EEG in twenty-four healthy participants. Both tactile and proprioceptive st…
Does Observation of Postural Imbalance Induce a Postural Reaction?
2011
Import JabRef | WosArea Life Sciences and Biomedicine - Other Topics; International audience; Background: Several studies bring evidence that action observation elicits contagious responses during social interactions. However automatic imitative tendencies are generally inhibited and it remains unclear in which conditions mere action observation triggers motor behaviours. In this study, we addressed the question of contagious postural responses when observing human imbalance. Methodology/Principal Findings: We recorded participants' body sway while they observed a fixation cross (control condition), an upright point-light display of a gymnast balancing on a rope, and the same point-light di…