rudyvdbrink/CitationDatabase huggingface dataset:
The use of the chick embryo CAM assay in the study of angiogenic activiy of biomaterials.
Microvascular research, 2020

The chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) is a highly vascularized extraembryonic membrane, which carries out several functions during embryonic development, including exchange of respiratory gases, calcium transport from the eggshell, acid-base homeostasis in the embryo, and ion and water reabsorption from the allantoic fluid. Due to its easy accessibility, affordability and given that it constitutes an immunodeficient environment, CAM has been used as an experimental model for >50 years and in particular it has been broadly used to study angiogenesis and anti-angiogenesis. This review article describes the use of the CAM assay as a valuable assay to test angiogenic activity of biomaterials in vivo before they are further investigated in animal models. In this context, the use of CAM has become an integral part of the biocompatibility testing process for developing potential biomaterials.
The effects of CLP-induced sepsis on proliferation and apoptosis of granulosa and theca cells in rat ovary: A histochemical and ultrastructural study.
Reproductive biology, 2020

Sepsis is defined as a systemic inflammatory response to infection. This study is aimed to evaluate the effects of experimental sepsis on the proliferation and apoptosis of granulosa and theca cells in the rat ovary. 28-day-old immature Wistar-Albino female rats were treated with pregnant mare serum gonadotrophin to develop the first generation of preovulatory follicles. Sepsis was induced by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). Following in vivo 5-Bromo-2-deoxyuridine (BrdU) labeling, animals were sacrificed and ovaries were embedded in paraffin and Epon. Besides electron microscopic evaluation, BrdU, cleaved caspase-3, p27 immunostaining, and TUNEL labeling were performed. In CLP-operated animals, cleaved caspase-3 immunoreactivity was significantly increased in Graafian follicles. TUNEL and BrdU labeling in the ovarian follicles were not statistically different between CLP and sham-operated rats. In septic animals, p27 immunoreactivity was increased significantly in the nuclei of oocytes and decreased in the cytoplasm of granulosa and theca cells in multilaminar primary follicles compared to the sham group. In ultrastructural evaluation, increased apoptosis was observed in theca interna and granulosa cells in both the early and late stages of follicles in the CLP group. In conclusion, experimentally-induced sepsis leads to apoptosis in ovarian follicles at advanced stages of development. Our data suggest that although sepsis may not cause a potential threat to developing follicles at least in the short term, more severe damage may occur during advanced stages of follicle development.
Adult neurogenesis, mental health, and mental illness: hope or hype?
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2008

Psychiatric and neurologic disorders take an enormous toll on society. Alleviating the devastating symptoms and consequences of neuropsychiatric disorders such as addiction, depression, epilepsy, and schizophrenia is a main force driving clinical and basic researchers alike. By elucidating these disease neuromechanisms, researchers hope to better define treatments and preventive therapies. Research suggests that regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis represents a promising approach to treating and perhaps preventing mental illness. Here we appraise the role of adult hippocampal neurogenesis in major psychiatric and neurologic disorders within the essential framework of recent progress made in understanding "normal" adult neurogenesis. Topics addressed include the following: the life cycle of an adult hippocampal stem cell and the implications for aging; links between learning and hippocampal neurogenesis; the reciprocal relationship between cocaine self-administration and adult hippocampal neurogenesis; the role of adult neurogenesis in an animal model of depression and response to antidepressant exposure; the impact of neonatal seizures on dentate gyrus neurogenesis; and the contribution of a schizophrenia-susceptibility gene to adult hippocampal neurogenesis. These topics are discussed in light of the regulation of adult neurogenesis, the relationship to normal neurogenesis in adulthood and aging, and, importantly, the manipulation of neurogenesis to promote mental health and treat mental illness.
Salicylate increases the gain of the central auditory system.
Neuroscience, 2009

High doses of salicylate, the anti-inflammatory component of aspirin, induce transient tinnitus and hearing loss. Systemic injection of 250 mg/kg of salicylate, a dose that reliably induces tinnitus in rats, significantly reduced the sound evoked output of the rat cochlea. Paradoxically, salicylate significantly increased the amplitude of the sound-evoked field potential from the auditory cortex (AC) of conscious rats, but not the inferior colliculus (IC). When rats were anesthetized with isoflurane, which increases GABA-mediated inhibition, the salicylate-induced AC amplitude enhancement was abolished, whereas ketamine, which blocks N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors, further increased the salicylate-induced AC amplitude enhancement. Direct application of salicylate to the cochlea, however, reduced the response amplitude of the cochlea, IC and AC, suggesting the AC amplitude enhancement induced by systemic injection of salicylate does not originate from the cochlea. To identify a behavioral correlate of the salicylate-induced AC enhancement, the acoustic startle response was measured before and after salicylate treatment. Salicylate significantly increased the amplitude of the startle response. Collectively, these results suggest that high doses of salicylate increase the gain of the central auditory system, presumably by down-regulating GABA-mediated inhibition, leading to an exaggerated acoustic startle response. The enhanced startle response may be the behavioral correlate of hyperacusis that often accompanies tinnitus and hearing loss.
NG2 and NG2-positive cells delineate focal cerebral infarct demarcation in rats.
Neuropathology : official journal of the Japanese Society of Neuropathology, 2013

Focal cerebral ischemia induces cellular responses that may result in secondary tissue damage. We recently demonstrated multi-facetted spatial and temporal patterns of neuroinflammation by multimodal imaging. In the present study, we especially focus on the separation of vital and necrotic tissue, which enabled us to define a demarcation zone. Focal cerebral ischemia was induced via macrosphere embolization of the middle cerebral artery in Wistar rats. Subsequent cellular processes were investigated immunohistochemically from 3 to 56 days after onset of ischemia. We detected several infarct subareas: a necrotic infarct core and its margin adjacent to a nerve/glial antigen 2 (NG2)+ zone delineating it from a vital peri-infarct zone. Initially transition from necrotic to vital tissue was gradual; later on necrosis was precisely separated from vital tissue by a narrow NG2+ belt that was devoid of astrocytes, oligodendrocytes or neurons. Within this demarcation zone NG2+ cells associate with ionized calcium binding adaptor molecule 1 (Iba1) but not with GFAP, neuronal nuclear antigen (NeuN) or 2', 3'-cyclic nucleotide 3'-phosphodiesterase (CNPase). During further infarct maturation NG2 seemed to be positioned in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the demarcation zone, whereas Iba1+ cells invaded the necrotic infarct core and GFAP+ cells built a gliotic containing belt between the lesion and NeuN+ unaffected tissue. Overall, our data suggested that NG2 proteoglycan expression and secretion hallmarked demarcation as a process that actively separated necrosis from vital tissue and therefore decisively impacts secondary neurodegeneration after ischemic stroke.
Neural stem cell transplantation in ischemic stroke: A role for preconditioning and cellular engineering.
Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, 2017

Ischemic stroke continues to be a leading cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. To protect and/or repair the ischemic brain, a multitiered approach may be centered on neural stem cell (NSC) transplantation. Transplanted NSCs exert beneficial effects not only via structural replacement, but also via immunomodulatory and/or neurotrophic actions. Unfortunately, the clinical translation of such promising therapies remains elusive, in part due to their limited persistence/survivability within the hostile ischemic microenvironment. Herein, we discuss current approaches for the development of NSCs more amenable to survival within the ischemic brain as a tool for future cellular therapies in stroke.
Human microsaccade-related visual brain responses.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2009

Microsaccades are very small, involuntary flicks in eye position that occur on average once or twice per second during attempted visual fixation. Microsaccades give rise to EMG eye muscle spikes that can distort the spectrum of the scalp EEG and mimic increases in gamma band power. Here we demonstrate that microsaccades are also accompanied by genuine and sizeable cortical activity, manifested in the EEG. In three experiments, high-resolution eye movements were corecorded with the EEG: during sustained fixation of checkerboard and face stimuli and in a standard visual oddball task that required the counting of target stimuli. Results show that microsaccades as small as 0.15 degrees generate a field potential over occipital cortex and midcentral scalp sites 100-140 ms after movement onset, which resembles the visual lambda response evoked by larger voluntary saccades. This challenges the standard assumption of human brain imaging studies that saccade-related brain activity is precluded by fixation, even when fully complied with. Instead, additional cortical potentials from microsaccades were present in 86% of the oddball task trials and of similar amplitude as the visual response to stimulus onset. Furthermore, microsaccade probability varied systematically according to the proportion of target stimuli in the oddball task, causing modulations of late stimulus-locked event-related potential (ERP) components. Microsaccades present an unrecognized source of visual brain signal that is of interest for vision research and may have influenced the data of many ERP and neuroimaging studies.
Alzheimer, mitochondria and gender.
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2016

Epidemiological studies revealed that two-thirds of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients are women and the drop of sex steroid hormones after the menopause has been proposed to be one risk factor in AD. Similarly, the decrease of circulating testosterone levels with aging may also increase the risk of AD in men. Studies attest the neuroprotective effects of sex hormones in animal models of AD, but clinical trial data remain controversial. Here, we discuss the implication of mitochondria in gender differences observed in AD patients and animal models of AD. We summarize the role of mitochondria in aging and AD, pointing to the potential correlation between the loss of sex hormones and changes in the brain redox status. We discuss the protective effects of the sex hormones, estradiol, progesterone and testosterone with a specific focus on mitochondrial dysfunction in AD. The understanding of pathological processes linking the loss of sex hormones with mitochondrial dysfunction and mechanisms that initiate the disease onset may open new avenues for the development of gender-specific therapeutic approaches.
Diagnostic value of cerebrospinal fluid tau, neurofilament, and progranulin in definite frontotemporal lobar degeneration.
Alzheimer's research & therapy, 2018

We explored the diagnostic performance of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers in allowing differentiation between frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), as well as between FTLD pathological subtypes.
The vertebral biomechanic previous and after kyphoplasty.
Aging clinical and experimental research, 2013

The biomechanical understanding of increasing anterior column load with progressing kyphosis leading to subsequent vertebral compression fracture (VCF) established the basic rationale for kyphoplasty. The lumbar spine can support an effort of 500 kg in the axis of the vertebral body, and a bending moment of 20 Nm in flexion. Consequently, if this effort is forward deviated of only 10 cm, the acceptable effort will be reduced to 20 kg so it is important to restore the vertebral anterior wall after a VCF: the authors describe the biomechanical modifications in the spine after kyphoplasty.
Perinatal distress in 1p36 deletion syndrome can mimic hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy.
American journal of medical genetics. Part A, 2019

1p36 deletion syndrome is a well-described condition with a recognizable phenotype, including cognitive impairment, seizures, and structural brain anomalies such as periventricular leukomalacia (PVL). In a large series of these individuals by Battaglia et al., "birth history was notable in 50% of the cases for varying degrees of perinatal distress." Given the potential for perinatal distress, seizures and PVL, we questioned if this disorder has clinical overlap with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). We reviewed the medical records of 69 individuals with 1p36 deletion to clarify the perinatal phenotype of this disorder and determine if there is evidence of perinatal distress and/or hypoxic injury. Our data provides evidence that these babies have signs of perinatal distress. The majority (59% term; 75% preterm) needed resuscitation and approximately 18% had cardiac arrest. Most had abnormal brain imaging (84% term; 73% preterm) with abnormal white matter findings in over half of patients. PVL or suggestion of "hypoxic insult" was present in 18% of term and 45% of preterm patients. In conclusion, individuals with 1p36 deletion have evidence of perinatal distress, white matter changes, and seizures, which can mimic HIE but are likely related to their underlying chromosome disorder.
The genomes of two key bumblebee species with primitive eusocial organization.
Genome biology, 2015

The shift from solitary to social behavior is one of the major evolutionary transitions. Primitively eusocial bumblebees are uniquely placed to illuminate the evolution of highly eusocial insect societies. Bumblebees are also invaluable natural and agricultural pollinators, and there is widespread concern over recent population declines in some species. High-quality genomic data will inform key aspects of bumblebee biology, including susceptibility to implicated population viability threats.
Anatomical variations of the renal arterial vasculature: An Australian perspective.
Journal of medical imaging and radiation oncology, 2017

Variations of the renal arteries have been studied and published across various population groups, but similar information for the ethnically diverse nation of Australia is lacking. This study describes the pattern of renal artery anomalies in a section of the Australian population based on computed tomography (CT) angiograms of the abdomen and cadaveric dissection.
Gait Assessment of Pain and Analgesics: Comparison of the DigiGait™ and CatWalk™ Gait Imaging Systems.
Neuroscience bulletin, 2019

Investigation of pain requires measurements of nociceptive sensitivity and other pain-related behaviors. Recent studies have indicated the superiority of gait analysis over traditional evaluations (e.g., skin sensitivity and sciatic function index [SFI]) in detecting subtle improvements and deteriorations in animal models. Here, pain-related gait parameters, whose criteria include (1) alteration in pain models, (2) correlation with nociceptive threshold, and (3) normalization by analgesics, were identified in representative models of neuropathic pain (spared nerve injury: coordination data) and inflammatory pain (intraplantar complete Freund's adjuvant: both coordination and intensity data) in the DigiGait™ and CatWalk™ systems. DigiGait™ had advantages in fixed speed (controlled by treadmill) and dynamic SFI, while CatWalk™ excelled in intrinsic velocity, intensity data, and high-quality 3D images. Insights into the applicability of each system may provide guidance for selecting the appropriate gait imaging system for different animal models and optimization for future pain research.
Commentary: An updated agenda for the study of digital media use and adolescent development - future directions following Odgers & Jensen (2020).
Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 2020

Odgers and Jensen's (Annual research review: Adolescent mental health in the digital age: Facts, fears, and future directions, Wiley-Blackwell, 2020) review compellingly suggests that a rapid increase in the number of hours adolescents now dedicate to digital media use over the past decade may not be associated with concomitant changes in the prevalence of adolescent mental health disorders. Yet, there are many unexplored questions that deserve attention to fully understand how adolescents' use of digital media has transformed social experiences and adolescent development. In this commentary, we offer an agenda for researchers interested in examining digital media use within a broader developmental psychopathology framework. Specifically, we discuss past theories and emerging findings suggesting both deleterious and beneficial effects of digital media use, a need for greater semantic clarity in the field, and a call for greater methodological precision to fully capture concurrent and prospective associations between digital media use and adjustment. In addition, we suggest that it may be fruitful to dedicate less research attention toward the number of hours that adolescents spend using technology, and more on what specific behaviors teens engage in online. Moreover, more work is needed to understand individual vulnerability or resiliency factors that may impact online experiences. We review opportunities for future work on digital media use that may integrate findings from developmental social neuroscience and also discuss a need to investigate how adolescents' online behavior may be affecting developmental competencies offline. Adolescents' use of digital media is rapidly changing, and this is an important, yet challenging topic that deserves attention from investigators who study adolescent adjustment.
Integration of audiovisual spatial signals is not consistent with maximum likelihood estimation.
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2019

Multisensory perception is regarded as one of the most prominent examples where human behaviour conforms to the computational principles of maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). In particular, observers are thought to integrate auditory and visual spatial cues weighted in proportion to their relative sensory reliabilities into the most reliable and unbiased percept consistent with MLE. Yet, evidence to date has been inconsistent. The current pre-registered, large-scale (N = 36) replication study investigated the extent to which human behaviour for audiovisual localization is in line with maximum likelihood estimation. The acquired psychophysics data show that while observers were able to reduce their multisensory variance relative to the unisensory variances in accordance with MLE, they weighed the visual signals significantly stronger than predicted by MLE. Simulations show that this dissociation can be explained by a greater sensitivity of standard estimation procedures to detect deviations from MLE predictions for sensory weights than for audiovisual variances. Our results therefore suggest that observers did not integrate audiovisual spatial signals weighted exactly in proportion to their relative reliabilities for localization. These small deviations from the predictions of maximum likelihood estimation may be explained by observers' uncertainty about the world's causal structure as accounted for by Bayesian causal inference.
Dysregulation of Muscle-Specific MicroRNAs as Common Pathogenic Feature Associated with Muscle Atrophy in ALS, SMA and SBMA: Evidence from Animal Models and Human Patients.
International journal of molecular sciences, 2021

Motor neuron diseases (MNDs) are neurodegenerative disorders characterized by upper and/or lower MN loss. MNDs include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), and spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA). Despite variability in onset, progression, and genetics, they share a common skeletal muscle involvement, suggesting that it could be a primary site for MND pathogenesis. Due to the key role of muscle-specific microRNAs (myomiRs) in skeletal muscle development, by real-time PCR we investigated the expression of miR-206, miR-133a, miR-133b, and miR-1, and their target genes, in G93A-SOD1 ALS, Δ7SMA, and KI-SBMA mouse muscle during disease progression. Further, we analyzed their expression in serum of
The Representation of Two-Body Shapes in the Human Visual Cortex.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2020

Human social nature has shaped visual perception. A signature of the relationship between vision and sociality is a particular visual sensitivity to social entities such as faces and bodies. We asked whether human vision also exhibits a special sensitivity to spatial relations that reliably correlate with social relations. In general, interacting people are more often situated face-to-face than back-to-back. Using functional MRI and behavioral measures in female and male human participants, we show that visual sensitivity to social stimuli extends to images including two bodies facing toward (vs away from) each other. In particular, the inferior lateral occipital cortex, which is involved in visual-object perception, is organized such that the inferior portion encodes the number of bodies (one vs two) and the superior portion is selectively sensitive to the spatial relation between bodies (facing vs nonfacing). Moreover, functionally localized, body-selective visual cortex responded to facing bodies more strongly than identical, but nonfacing, bodies. In this area, multivariate pattern analysis revealed an accurate representation of body dyads with sharpening of the representation of single-body postures in facing dyads, which demonstrates an effect of visual context on the perceptual analysis of a body. Finally, the cost of body inversion (upside-down rotation) on body recognition, a behavioral signature of a specialized mechanism for body perception, was larger for facing versus nonfacing dyads. Thus, spatial relations between multiple bodies are encoded in regions for body perception and affect the way in which bodies are processed.
IRE1α-XBP1s induces PDI expression to increase MTP activity for hepatic VLDL assembly and lipid homeostasis.
Cell metabolism, 2012

The unfolded protein response (UPR) is a signaling pathway required to maintain endoplasmic reticulum (ER) homeostasis and hepatic lipid metabolism. Here, we identify an essential role for the inositol-requiring transmembrane kinase/endoribonuclease 1α (IRE1α)-X box binding protein 1 (XBP1) arm of the UPR in regulation of hepatic very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) assembly and secretion. Hepatocyte-specific deletion of Ire1α reduces lipid partitioning into the ER lumen and impairs the assembly of triglyceride (TG)-rich VLDL but does not affect TG synthesis, de novo lipogenesis, or the synthesis or secretion of apolipoprotein B (apoB). The defect in VLDL assembly is, at least in part, due to decreased microsomal triglyceride-transfer protein (MTP) activity resulting from reduced protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) expression. Collectively, our findings reveal a key role for the IRE1α-XBP1s-PDI axis in linking ER homeostasis with regulation of VLDL production and hepatic lipid homeostasis that may provide a therapeutic target for disorders of lipid metabolism.