Search results for "brain"
showing 10 items of 3997 documents
Nonketotic hyperglycinemia and epilepsy
2015
Nonketotic hyperglycinemia (NKH) is an autosomal recessive inborn error in the glycine degradation pathway resulting in severe neurological impairment with intractable seizures and brain damage in the majority of the affected patients. Depending on the age of onset and on the outcome of the disease, severe and attenuated forms of NKH may be discriminated. During neonatal period, patients may present with early myoclonic encephalopathy; in the course of the disease, the picture of seizures changes, and multiple forms of seizures may occur. In patients with severe NKH, seizures remain persistent and resistant to anticonvulsant treatment. Variant NKH, caused by mutations resulting in a deficie…
Muscarinic mobilization of choline in rat brain in vivo as shown by the cerebral arterio-venous difference of choline.
1987
In anesthetized rats, the choline levels of cerebrospinal fluid and plasma obtained from blood collected from peripheral vessels (carotid artery, cardiac vessels) and from the transverse sinus were determined with a radioenzymatic assay. Cortical release of choline was studied using the "cup technique." The plasma choline level of the peripheral blood (11.5 mumol/L) was lower than that of the sinus blood. The resulting cerebral arterio-venous difference of choline was negative (3.2 mumol/L) and reflected the net release of choline from the whole brain. The plasma choline levels were not different irrespective of whether the rats were anesthetized with ether, urethane, or pentobarbital. Howe…
Antipsychotic drugs antagonize human serotonin type 3 receptor currents in a noncompetitive manner
2004
The serotonin type 3 (5-HT(3)) receptor is the only ligand-gated ion channel receptor for serotonin (5-HT). 5-HT(3) receptors play an important role in modulating the inhibitory action of dopamine in mesocorticolimbic brain regions. Neuroleptic drugs are commonly thought to exert their psychopharmacological action mainly through dopamine and serotonin type 2 (5-HT(2)) receptors. Except for clozapine, a direct pharmacological interaction of neuroleptics with 5-HT(3) receptors has not yet been described. Using the concentration-clamp technique, we investigated the effects of flupentixol, various phenothiazines, haloperidol, clozapine and risperidone on Na(+)-inward currents through 5-HT(3) re…
cGMP MODULATES STEM CELLS DIFFERENTIATION TO NEURONS IN BRAIN IN VIVO
2010
During brain development neural stem cells may differentiate to neurons or to other cell types. The aim of this work was to assess the role of cGMP (cyclic GMP) in the modulation of differentiation of neural stem cells to neurons or non-neuronal cells. cGMP in brain of fetuses was reduced to 46% of controls by treating pregnant rats with nitroarginine-methylester (L-NAME) and was restored by co-treatment with sildenafil.Reducing cGMP during brain development leads to reduced differentiation of stem cells to neurons and increased differentiation to non-neuronal cells. The number of neurons in the prefrontal cortex originated from stem cells proliferating on gestational day 14 was 715 +/- 14/…
Breakdown of choline-containing phospholipids in rat brain during severe weight loss.
2002
Recent investigations in human anorectic patients indicated changes of brain choline metabolism. We used starved rats to investigate possible changes of brain choline metabolites during severe weight loss. Reductions of body weight by 15, 30 and 45% resulted in significant decreases of cerebral phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin levels. Concomitantly, the brain tissue content of glycerophosphocholine was increased while phosphocholine and free choline were unchanged. We conclude that severe weight loss is accompanied by phospholipase activation and breakdown of choline-containing phospholipids in the brain.
Theoretical basis for the use of non-invasive thermal measurements to assess the brain injury in newborns undergoing therapeutic hypothermia.
2020
AbstractThe aim of this paper is to propose a new non-invasive methodology to estimate thermogenesis in newborns with perinatal asphyxia (PA) undergoing therapeutic hypothermia (TH). Metabolic heat production (with respect to either a neonate’s body mass or its body surface) is calculated from the newborn’s heat balance, estimating all remaining terms of this heat balance utilising results of only non-invasive thermal measurements. The measurement devices work with standard equipment used for therapeutic hypothermia and are equipped with the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), which allows one to record and monitor the course of the therapy remotely (using an internet browser) wi…
Restoration of cerebral and systemic microvascular architecture in APP/PS1 transgenic mice following treatment with Liraglutide™.
2015
OBJECTIVE: Cerebral microvascular impairments occurring in AD may reduce Aβ peptide clearance and impact upon circulatory ultrastructure and function. We hypothesized that microvascular pathologies occur in organs responsible for systemic Aβ peptide clearance in a model of AD and that Liraglutide (Victoza(®)) improves vessel architecture. METHODS: Seven-month-old APP/PS1 and age-matched wild-type mice received once-daily intraperitoneal injections of either Liraglutide or saline (n = 4 per group) for eight weeks. Casts of cerebral, splenic, hepatic, and renal microanatomy were analyzed using SEM. RESULTS: Casts from wild-type mice showed regularly spaced microvasculature with smooth lumenal…
Early, but not late onset estrogen replacement therapy prevents oxidative stress and metabolic alterations caused by ovariectomy.
2014
Aims: The usefulness of estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) in preventing oxidative stress associated with menopause is controversial. We aimed to study if there is a critical time window for effective treatment of the effects of ovariectomy with estrogens at the molecular, metabolic, and cellular level. Results: Our main finding is that early, but not late onset of ERT prevents an ovariectomy-associated increase in mitochondrial hydrogen peroxide levels, oxidative damage to lipids and proteins, and a decrease in glutathione peroxidase and catalase activity in rats. This may be due to a change in the estrogen receptor (ER) expression profile: ovariectomy increases the ER α/β ratio and immedi…
Developmental dyslexia: atypical cortical asymmetries and functional significance
2000
Using brain magnetic resonance imaging, we measured in 16 young developmental dyslexic adults and 14 age-matched controls cortical asymmetries of posterior language-related areas, including Planum temporale and parietal operculum cortical ribbon, and of the inferior frontal region related in the left hemisphere to speech processing. In addition, we assessed the sulcal morphology of the inferior frontal gyrus in both groups according to a qualitative method. The dyslexic subjects also performed specific tasks exploring different aspects of phonological and lexical-semantic processes. Results showed that: (1) contrary to most results reported in the literature, there is a lack of any morpholo…
Performance Differences Using a Vibro-Tactile P300 BCI in LIS-Patients Diagnosed With Stroke and ALS
2018
Patients with locked-in syndrome (LIS) are typically unable to move or communicate and can be misdiagnosed as patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). Behavioral assessment scales are limited in their ability to detect signs of consciousness in this population. Recent research has shown that brain-computer interface (BCI) technology could supplement behavioral scales and allows to establish communication with these severely disabled patients. In this study, we compared the vibro-tactile P300 based BCI performance in two groups of patients with LIS of different etiologies: stroke (n = 6) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (n = 9). Two vibro-tactile paradigms were administered to …