rudyvdbrink/CitationDatabase huggingface dataset:
Age- and disease-related neuroplasticity of chemically identified neuronal circuits: a tribute to Professor Erminio Costa.
Pharmacological research, 2011

The following review highlights a small portion of the research ongoing in my laboratory at the Fidia Georgetown Institute of Neuroscience (FGIN) during the years 1989-1994. Specifically, this work focused on the selective vulnerability of neurons in Alzheimer's disease. At the time, it was known that α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoaxolepropionate (AMPA) receptors were composed of one or more subunits (GluR1-4). Furthermore, the presence of the GluR2 subunit was known to substantially reduce Ca2+ through AMPA receptors in response to ligand binding. This finding led us to hypothesize that the presence or absence of the GluR2 subunit in the AMPA receptor may have a profound influence on the ability of the cell to gate extracellular Ca2+ and maintain intracellular calcium homeostasis. Furthermore, in Alzheimer's disease we hypothesized that cells at risk for developing AD neuropathology will express certain combinations of glutamate receptor subunits that form channels with increased permeability to Ca2+. In turn, these cells may become more vulnerable to the pathologic consequences of increased intracellular Ca2+ and destabilized intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis. To test this hypothesis we employed anatomical techniques and examined post mortem materials from patients with AD. The results of these studies are summarized in this review. Notably, this review also highlights the valuable collaborations established during my five years at FGIN and pays tribute to the intellectually rich and supportive environment provided by Dr. Costa and colleagues.
10 questions about intracranial atherosclerotic stenosis.
The neurologist, 2010

Intracranial atherosclerotic disease is one of the most common causes of stroke worldwide, yet treatment for this disease is still uncertain. This article discusses challenges in the diagnosis and treatment of intracranial stenosis by posing 10 commonly asked questions about this disease.
Thematic Minireview Series: Inflammatory transcription confronts homeostatic disruptions.
The Journal of biological chemistry, 2017

In this Thematic Minireview Series, three stimulating articles are presented: one on long non-coding RNAs, another on the ligand-activated transcription factor aryl hydrocarbon receptor, and the third on how docosanoids modulate transcriptionally modulated homeostasis and ultimately cell survival in the retina and brain.
Single-hole, ruptured parenchymal arteriovenous fistula of the mesencephalon: not known vascular malformation of the brain or a posthemorrhagic entity?
Ideggyogyaszati szemle, 2021

The subtypes of brain arteriovenous malformations, with direct, single-hole fistulas without co-existing nidus are not described as existing entities inside the brain parenchyma but on the pial surface. True parenchymal arteriovenous malformations present with nidal structure, even if they are small, whereas surface lesions may present a direct fistulous configuration. In this case of midbrain haemorrhage a direct arteriovenous fistula was detected at the level of the red nucleus between a paramedian midbrain perforator artery and a paramedian parenchymal vein, with pseudo-aneurysm formation at the fistulous connection, without signs of adjacent nidus structure. The hypothesis whether a pre-existing arteriovenous fistula ruptured or a spontaneous haemorrhage has caused the fistulous connection is discussed.
Safety and effectiveness of pharmacotherapy for depression in adults who have sustained a traumatic brain injury: a systematic review protocol.
JBI database of systematic reviews and implementation reports, 2017

The objective of this systematic review is to synthesize the current evidence on the effectiveness and harms of pharmacotherapy in the management of depression in adults who have sustained a traumatic brain injury.
Diagnostic accuracy of p53 immunohistochemistry as surrogate of TP53 sequencing in endometrial cancer.
Pathology, research and practice, 2020

Aberrant p53 immunohistochemical expression is used to identify the copy-number-high/TP53-mutant subgroup of endometrial cancer (EC). We aimed to determine the diagnostic accuracy of p53 immunohistochemistry as surrogate for TP53 sequencing through a systematic review and meta-analysis. Electronic databases were searched from their inception to June 2019. All studies assessing p53 expression and TP53 mutations in EC were included. Diagnostic accuracy was assessed based on area under the curve (AUC). Immunohistochemical criteria used to define aberrant p53 expression were "overexpression" and "overexpression or complete absence". Subgroup analysis was based on the sequencing technique adopted (Polymerase Chain Reaction + sequencing, or next generation sequencing, NGS). Thirteen observational studies with 727 endometrial cancers were included. Both "overexpression" and "overexpression or complete absence" showed high diagnostic accuracy (AUC = 0.9088 and 0.9030, respectively). The subgroup with "overexpression" and NGS showed the best results, with very high diagnostic accuracy (AUC = 0.9927). In conclusion, immunohistochemistry for p53 is a highly accurate surrogate of TP53 sequencing. Overexpression of p53 in ≥70-80% showed the best accuracy in predicting TP53 mutations. Further studies in this field should adopt optimized immunohistochemical procedures and take into account less common p53 patterns (e.g. cytoplasmic expression).
Mass spectrometric characterization of intact desferal-conjugated monoclonal antibodies for immuno-PET imaging.
Rapid communications in mass spectrometry : RCM, 2018

Immuno-PET imaging may prove to be a diagnostic and progression/intervention biomarker for Alzheimer's disease (AD) with improved sensitivity and specificity. Immuno-PET imaging is based on the coupling of an antibody with a chelator that captures a radioisotope thus serving as an in-vivo PET ligand. A robust and quality controlled process for linking the chelator to the-antibody is fundamental for the success of this approach.
Intravitreous delivery of melatonin affects the retinal neuron survival and visual signal transmission: 
Drug delivery, 2020

Intravitreal delivery can maximize the intensity of therapeutic agents and extend their residence time within ocular tissue. Melatonin is a lipophilic molecule that crosses freely biological barriers and cell membranes. This study intends to investigate the effects of intravitreally delivered melatonin on mouse retina. The visual function of administered mice is assessed by electrophysiological and behavior examinations three weeks after intravitreal delivery. Moreover, multi-electrode array (MEA) was used to assess the electrical activities of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). We found that intravitreal delivery of high dosage melatonin (400-500 µg/kg) destroyed the retinal architecture and impaired the visual function of mice. Conversely, the melatonin administration at low dose (100-300 µg/kg) did not have any significant effects on the photoreceptor survival or visual function. As shown in the MEA recording, the photoreceptors activity of the central region was more severely disturbed by the high dose melatonin. A pronounced augment of the spontaneous firing frequency was recorded in these mice received high dosage melatonin, indicating that intravitreal delivery of high dosage melatonin would affect the electrical activity of RGCs. Immunostaining assay showed that the vitality of cone photoreceptor was impaired by high dose melatonin. These findings suggest that intravitreal melatonin is not always beneficial for ocular tissues, especially when it is administered at high dosage. These data add new perspectives to current knowledge about melatonin delivery at the ocular level. Further therapeutic strategies should take into consideration of these risks that caused by delivery approach.
Chronic Neuropathic Pain of Brachial Plexus Avulsion Mistaken for Amputation Stump Pain for 36 Years: A Case Report.
Korean journal of neurotrauma, 2020

Following an amputation of the extremities, chronic neuropathic pain and discomfort, such as phantom limb pain (phantom pain), phantom sensation, and stump pain may occur. Clinical patterns of phantom pain, phantom sensation, and pump pain may overlap and these symptoms may also exist in one patient. Serious trauma to the upper limbs can result in brachial plexus avulsion (BPA). If BPA occurs at the same time as severe trauma of the upper extremity and the amputation of the upper limb is performed, chronic neuralgia caused by BPA may be mistaken for chronic amputation pain, such as phantom limb pain or stump pain. No major treatment advances in phantom pain have been made. However, unlike phantom limb pain, chronic neuropathic pain caused by BPA can be effectively treated with dorsal root entry zone lesioning (DREZ)-otomy. We report a patient who suffered for 34 years because the neuralgia caused by BPA was accompanied by an amputation of the arm, and so was thought to be amputation stump pain rather than BPA pain. The patient's chronic BPA pain improved with microsurgical DREZ-otomy.
An In Vitro Model for Studying Tau Aggregation Using Lentiviral-mediated Transduction of Human Neurons.
Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE, 2019

Aberrant aggregation of the protein tau is pathogenically involved in a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although mouse models of tauopathy have provided a valuable resource for investigating the neurotoxic mechanisms of aggregated tau, it is becoming increasingly apparent that, due to interspecies differences in neurophysiology, the mouse brain is unsuitable for modeling the human condition. Advances in cell culture methods have made human neuronal cultures accessible for experimental use in vitro and have aided in the development of neurotherapeutics. However, despite the adaptation of human neuronal cell cultures, in vitro models of human tauopathy are not yet widely available. This protocol describes a cellular model of tau aggregation in which human neurons are transduced with lentiviral-derived vectors that code for pathogenically mutated tau fused to a yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) reporter. Transduced cultures produce tau aggregates that stain positively for thioflavin and display markers of neurotoxicity, such as decreased axonal length and increased lysosomal volume. This procedure may be a useful and cost-effective model for studying human tauopathies.
Multidisciplinary management of acromegaly: A consensus.
Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders, 2020

The 13th Acromegaly Consensus Conference was held in November 2019 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and comprised acromegaly experts including endocrinologists and neurosurgeons who considered optimal approaches for multidisciplinary acromegaly management. Focused discussions reviewed techniques, results, and side effects of surgery, radiotherapy, and medical therapy, and how advances in technology and novel techniques have changed the way these modalities are used alone or in combination. Effects of treatment on patient outcomes were considered, along with strategies for optimizing and personalizing therapeutic approaches. Expert consensus recommendations emphasize how best to implement available treatment options as part of a multidisciplinary approach at Pituitary Tumor Centers of Excellence.
The concept-sharing approach: a teaching strategy to promote objective-oriented learning and academic performance in medical students.
Advances in physiology education, 2021

Traditionally teachers display the learning outline at the beginning and conclusions at the end of didactic teaching sessions, and students may find it difficult to understand how teaching activities relate to learning objectives and what they should study for assessments. We introduced the "concept-sharing approach" in our neurophysiology course. This approach explicates how the content relates with learning objectives throughout the entirety of each teaching session to help the students assimilate the learning material and direct their learning in an objective-orientated way. In this study, we aimed to examine satisfaction of the concept-sharing approach in medical students and to investigate the relationship between student perception of this teaching strategy and academic performance. The results demonstrated that most participants (74.1%) had a positive impression of this teaching strategy at the end of the course, which was significantly >50.7% at the beginning of the course (
Sport Practice Enhances Athletes' Observation Capacity: Comparing Scenic Change Detection in Open and Closed Sports.
Perceptual and motor skills, 2021

Domain-specific knowledge guides our attention and thus influences our perception. Prior change-blindness research has shown that expert athletes can spot meaningful scene changes more quickly than novices, but less is known of whether this expertise is modulated differentially between open and closed sporting activities. We presented 81 individuals (20 gymnasts, 19 rock climbers, 22 parkour practitioners, and 20 control participants) with alternating sequences of images that corresponded to the habitual training landscapes of each group (gymnasiums, rock cliffs, and urban environments, respectively). We included contextual and non-contextual scenic changes to evaluate whether athletes were generally aware of their environments, or whether their observation strategies only targeted sport-related environmental elements. Among these three athletic endeavors, we found that gymnasts were faster at detecting changes in their environment, irrespective of whether or not these changes were contextual to the sports involved. Expert rock climbers presented a domain-specific expertise that was improved even further for contextual changes. Parkour practitioners presented the fastest reaction times in the urban environment and some of the best reaction times for all types of changes. These results confirm that an ability to read the environment is an integral aspect of practice in open-skilled sports, while skills of athletes in closed-skilled sports are more closely related to motor skill repetitions in constant environments. Thus, open skill training may benefit athletes' guidance of attention. Our finding that parkour practitioners appeared to have developed the widest perceptual abilities was probably linked to these athletes' extremely wide range of practice environments and with the constant demands of this sport to find solutions in random natural environments that that are not purposely designed for the sport.
Floating ideas on theta waves.
Behavioral neuroscience, 2020

This special issue on the theta rhythm highlights recent experiments aimed at understanding the relationship between this slow, large amplitude oscillation and plasticity, fast oscillations, cellular activity and disease in both animals and humans. The articles in this issue of Behavioral Neuroscience use a number of approaches across different model systems and behavioral paradigms to provide an up-to-date account of recent progress in understanding how the theta rhythm coordinates neural activity in the service of cognition. Prominent themes that emerge are how theta is tightly related to movement in humans and rodents and how this rhythm could be leveraged as a biomarker for understanding and testing therapeutic approaches to treat psychiatric and neurological diseases. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Use of a novel drape 'tent' as an infection prevention control measure for mastoid surgery.
The Journal of laryngology and otology, 2020

Mastoid surgery is an aerosol-generating procedure that involves the use of a high-speed drill, which produces a mixture of water, bone, blood and tissue that may contain the viable coronavirus disease 2019 pathogen. This potentially puts the surgeon and other operating theatre personnel at risk of acquiring the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 from contact with droplets or aerosols. The use of an additional drape designed to limit the spread of droplets and aerosols has been described; such drapes include the 'Southampton Tent' and 'OtoTent'.
Applications of machine learning to diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Nature reviews. Neurology, 2020

Globally, there is a huge unmet need for effective treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. The complexity of the molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal degeneration and the heterogeneity of the patient population present massive challenges to the development of early diagnostic tools and effective treatments for these diseases. Machine learning, a subfield of artificial intelligence, is enabling scientists, clinicians and patients to address some of these challenges. In this Review, we discuss how machine learning can aid early diagnosis and interpretation of medical images as well as the discovery and development of new therapies. A unifying theme of the different applications of machine learning is the integration of multiple high-dimensional sources of data, which all provide a different view on disease, and the automated derivation of actionable insights.
Spatiotemporal Analysis of Cochlear Nucleus Innervation by Spiral Ganglion Neurons that Serve Distinct Regions of the Cochlea.
Neuroscience, 2020

Cochlear neurons innervate the brainstem cochlear nucleus in a tonotopic fashion according to their sensitivity to different sound frequencies (known as the neuron's characteristic frequency). It is unclear whether these neurons with distinct characteristic frequencies use different strategies to innervate the cochlear nucleus. Here, we use genetic approaches to differentially label spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs) and their auditory nerve fibers (ANFs) that relay different characteristic frequencies in mice. We found that SGN populations that supply distinct regions of the cochlea employ different cellular strategies to target and innervate neurons in the cochlear nucleus during tonotopic map formation. ANFs that will exhibit high-characteristic frequencies initially overshoot and sample a large area of targets before refining their connections to correct targets, while fibers that will exhibit low-characteristic frequencies are more accurate in initial targeting and undergo minimal target sampling. Moreover, similar to their peripheral projections, the central projections of ANFs show a gradient of development along the tonotopic axis, with outgrowth and branching of prospective high-frequency ANFs initiated about two days earlier than those of prospective low-frequency ANFs. The processes of synaptogenesis are similar between high- and low-frequency ANFs, but a higher proportion of low-frequency ANFs form smaller endbulb synaptic endings. These observations reveal the diversity of cellular mechanisms that auditory neurons that will become functionally distinct use to innervate their targets during tonotopic map formation.
Isolation and Culturing of Rat Primary Embryonic Basal Forebrain Cholinergic Neurons (BFCNs).
Bio-protocol, 2017

The basal forebrain is located close to the medial and ventral surfaces of the cerebral hemispheres that develop from the sub-pallium. It regulates multiple processes including attention, learning, memory and sleep. Dysfunction and degeneration of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons (BFCNs) are believed to be involved in many disorders of the brain such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), schizophrenia, sleep disorders and drug abuse ( Mobley
Re-exploring the pelvic neuroanatomy from a new perspective and a potential guidance for TaTME: a "bottom-up" approach.
Updates in surgery, 2021

Neuro-anatomy of the perineum has gained renewed attention due to its significance in the transanal procedures for rectal cancer (eg TaTME). Surgeons embarking on this technique must have sophisticated knowledge and a precise anatomical understanding of the perineum before proceeding with this reversed rectal approach. We report anatomical observations deriving from a relevant experience in the colorectal surgery field. The collective multicenter experience of the present study is clinically relevant and based on the rectal and transanal resections performed in colorectal centers of excellence from Greece, UK, and Italy over the last 10 years (2011-2020). From the original anatomical and intraoperative observations derived from collective cases operated by this multicenter group of colorectal surgical centers in three European countries, data were retrieved and analyzed in collaboration with specialist researchers of human anatomy and interpreted for their clinical significance and potential use for preoperative planning and intraoperative guidance during TaTME. This descriptive article demonstrates in detail the neurogenic pathways encountered in the perineum and pelvic cavity during transanal procedures. Specific anatomical and topographic implications are also included serving as a guide for colorectal surgeons to perform a nerve-sparing procedure. transanal approach for rectal excision offers new insights into the complex pelvic and perineal neuroanatomy while the procedure itself remains a challenge for surgeons. Preoperative anatomical planning and 3D reconstruction may help in anticipating technical difficulties, resulting in more precise surgical dissections and decreased postoperative complications.
Learning is enhanced by tailoring instruction to individual genetic differences.
eLife, 2019

It is widely argued that personalized instruction based on individual differences in learning styles or genetic predispositions could improve learning outcomes. However, this proposition has resisted clear demonstration in human studies, where it is difficult to control experience and quantify outcomes. Here, we take advantage of the tractable nature of vocal learning in songbirds (
The causal effects of health conditions and risk factors on social and socioeconomic outcomes: Mendelian randomization in UK Biobank.
International journal of epidemiology, 2020

We aimed to estimate the causal effect of health conditions and risk factors on social and socioeconomic outcomes in UK Biobank. Evidence on socioeconomic impacts is important to understand because it can help governments, policy makers and decision makers allocate resources efficiently and effectively.
The visual fields: an interdisciplinary history II. neurosurgeons and quantitative perimetry.
Journal of clinical neuroscience : official journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia, 2008

When operations for brain tumours became possible, exact charting of visual field defects assumed great importance in diagnosis and in monitoring post-operative progress. This process, known as quantitative perimetry, was energetically practised and taught by Harvey Cushing and by many of his pupils. The advent of non-invasive methods of imaging the brain and the rise of neuro-ophthalmology as an independent discipline were associated with a decline in neurosurgical commitment to quantitative perimetry, but it remains an important branch of the clinical neurosciences.