rudyvdbrink/CitationDatabase huggingface dataset:
The HIV Protein gp120 Alters Mitochondrial Dynamics in Neurons.
Neurotoxicity research, 2016

Neurotoxicity of human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV) includes synaptic simplification and neuronal apoptosis. However, the mechanisms of HIV-associated neurotoxicity remain unclear, thus precluding an effective treatment of the neurological complications. The present study was undertaken to characterize novel mechanisms of HIV neurotoxicity that may explain how HIV subjects develop neuronal degeneration. Several neurodegenerative disorders are characterized by mitochondrial dysfunction; therefore, we hypothesized that HIV promotes mitochondrial damage. We first analyzed brains from HIV encephalitis (HIVE) by electron microscopy. Several sections of HIVE subjects contained enlarged and damaged mitochondria compared to brains from HIV subjects with no neurological complications. Similar pathologies were observed in mice overexpressing the HIV protein gp120, suggesting that this viral protein may be responsible for mitochondrial pathology found in HIVE. To gain more information about the cellular mechanisms of gp120 neurotoxicity, we exposed rat cortical neurons to gp120 and we determined cellular oxygen consumption rate, mitochondrial distribution, and trafficking. Our data show that gp120 evokes impairment in mitochondrial function and distribution. These data suggest that one of the mechanisms of HIV neurotoxicity includes altered mitochondrial dynamics in neurons.
Serum levels of cytokines, glucose, and hemoglobin as possible predictors of poststroke depression, and association with poststroke fatigue.
The International journal of neuroscience, 2012

Depression is a frequent and potentially disabling sequela of stroke. In the present study, we investigated the ability of stroke type, infarct volume, and laterality, and the levels of various cytokines and other blood components in the acute phase of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) in 45 patients, to predict the level of depression (Beck Depression Inventory [BDI] score) at 6, 12, and 18 months after its onset. The BDI score at 12 months poststroke was positively correlated with the acute serum level of glucose (r = 0.32, p = .038). When excluding the patients using antidepressants, the correlation between glucose level and later depression became significant at all three time points. A general association was found between depression and fatigue. Novel findings are that high acute serum levels of glucose may predict depression after AIS, a glucose level of approximately 126 mg/dL at admission might be a critical limit. Furthermore, depression and fatigue are two generally related-although independent-sequelae of stroke. Our findings did not support a causal immunological etiology for poststroke depression (PSD), as has been suggested previously for poststroke fatigue (PSF) in the same study sample.
Fentanyl depression of respiration: Comparison with heroin and morphine.
British journal of pharmacology, 2020

Fentanyl overdose deaths have reached "epidemic" levels in North America. Death in opioid overdose invariably results from respiratory depression. In the present work, we have characterized how fentanyl depresses respiration, and by comparing fentanyl with heroin and morphine, the active breakdown product of heroin, we have sought to determine the factors, in addition to high potency, that contribute to the lethality of fentanyl.
High Times for Painful Blues: The Endocannabinoid System in Pain-Depression Comorbidity.
The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology, 2015

Depression and pain are two of the most debilitating disorders worldwide and have an estimated cooccurrence of up to 80%. Comorbidity of these disorders is more difficult to treat, associated with significant disability and impaired health-related quality of life than either condition alone, resulting in enormous social and economic cost. Several neural substrates have been identified as potential mediators in the association between depression and pain, including neuroanatomical reorganization, monoamine and neurotrophin depletion, dysregulation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis, and neuroinflammation. However, the past decade has seen mounting evidence supporting a role for the endogenous cannabinoid (endocannabinoid) system in affective and nociceptive processing, and thus, alterations in this system may play a key role in reciprocal interactions between depression and pain. This review will provide an overview of the preclinical evidence supporting an interaction between depression and pain and the evidence supporting a role for the endocannabinoid system in this interaction.
Predicting in-hospital mortality and unanticipated admissions to the intensive care unit using routinely collected blood tests and vital signs: Development and validation of a multivariable model.
Resuscitation, 2018

The National Early Warning System (NEWS) is based on vital signs; the Laboratory Decision Tree Early Warning Score (LDT-EWS) on laboratory test results. We aimed to develop and validate a new EWS (the LDTEWS:NEWS risk index) by combining the two and evaluating the discrimination of the primary outcome of unanticipated intensive care unit (ICU) admission or in-hospital mortality, within 24 h.
Subgroups of parvalbumin-expressing interneurons in layers 2/3 of the visual cortex.
Journal of neurophysiology, 2013

The input, processing, and output characteristics of inhibitory interneurons help shape information flow through layers 2/3 of the visual cortex. Parvalbumin (PV)-positive interneurons modulate and synchronize the gain and dynamic responsiveness of pyramidal neurons. To define the diversity of PV interneurons in layers 2/3 of the developing visual cortex, we characterized their passive and active membrane properties. Using Ward's and k-means multidimensional clustering, we identified four PV interneuron subgroups. The most notable difference between the subgroups was their firing patterns in response to moderate stimuli just above rheobase. Two subgroups showed regular and continuous firing at all stimulus intensities above rheobase. The difference between these two continuously firing subgroups was that one fired at much higher frequencies and transitioned into this high-frequency firing rate at or near rheobase. The two other subgroups showed irregular, stuttering firing patterns just above rheobase. Both of these subgroups typically transitioned to regular and continuous firing at intense stimulations, but one of these subgroups, the strongly stuttering subgroup, showed irregular firing across a wider range of stimulus intensities and firing frequencies. The four subgroups also differed in excitatory synaptic input, providing independent support for the classification of subgroups. The subgroups of PV interneurons identified here would respond differently to inputs of varying intensity and frequency, generating diverse patterns of PV inhibition in the developing neural circuit.
Phosphatidylinositol and phosphatidic acid transport between the ER and plasma membrane during PLC activation requires the Nir2 protein.
Biochemical Society transactions, 2016

Phospholipase C (PLC)-mediated hydrolysis of the limited pool of plasma membrane (PM) phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate [PtdIns(4,5)P2] requires replenishment from a larger pool of phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns) via sequential phosphorylation by PtdIns 4-kinases and phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PtdIns4P) 5-kinases. Since PtdIns is synthesized in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and PtdIns(4,5)P2 is generated in the PM, it has been postulated that PtdIns transfer proteins (PITPs) provide the means for this lipid transfer function. Recent studies identified the large PITP protein, Nir2 as important for PtdIns transfer from the ER to the PM. It was also found that Nir2 was required for the transfer of phosphatidic acid (PtdOH) from the PM to the ER. In Nir2-depleted cells, activation of PLC leads to PtdOH accumulation in the PM and PtdIns synthesis becomes severely impaired. In quiescent cells, Nir2 is localized to the ER via interaction of its FFAT domain with ER-bound VAMP-associated proteins VAP-A and-B. After PLC activation, Nir2 also binds to the PM via interaction of its C-terminal domains with diacylglycerol (DAG) and PtdOH. Through these interactions, Nir2 functions in ER-PM contact zones. Mutations in VAP-B that have been identified in familial forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou-Gehrig's disease) cause aggregation of the VAP-B protein, which then impairs its binding to several proteins, including Nir2. These findings have shed new lights on the importance of non-vesicular lipid transfer of PtdIns and PtdOH in ER-PM contact zones with a possible link to a devastating human disease.
Phantom limb pain relieved with different modalities of central nervous system stimulation: a clinical and functional imaging case report of two patients.
Neuromodulation : journal of the International Neuromodulation Society, 2004

Phantom limb pain (PLP) is a type of neuropathic pain syndrome that has evoked much interest in scientific and clinical fields. The condition is often intractable and severely debilitating. Though there are anecdotal reports in the literature of successful management of individual cases with brain and spinal cord stimulation, it has not been possible to develop a system of management that is consistently successful, mainly due to the paucity of basic neurophysiological data about PLP and its pathways in the central nervous system (CNS). Functional imaging offers a way of collecting information about the basic mechanisms and pathways of PLP from patients without the excessive risk of more invasive penetrating electrode studies or the questionable reliability of animal data. There have been very few studies that have looked at the direct effect of CNS stimulation on regional brain activation and correlation with the pain state. We describe two cases of PLP that have been satisfactorily treated with CNS stimulation (motor cortex and then periventricular gray in one and spinal cord in the other) and have been subjected to single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) studies when in pain and then during stimulation with recorded pain relief. We found that regardless of the site of stimulation in the CNS, pain relief is associated with blood flow changes in similar areas of the brain, mainly the parietal and cingulate cortex and also in the thalamic nuclei and the central gray matter. Further studies of this kind should reveal more about the complex mechanisms of PLP and other forms of neuropathic pain.
Verbal memory decline from hippocampal depth electrodes in temporal lobe surgery for epilepsy.
Epilepsia, 2017

To explore whether patients with refractory mesial temporal lobe epilepsy risk aggravated verbal memory loss from intracranial electroencephalography (EEG) recording with longitudinal hippocampal electrodes in the language-dominant hemisphere.
Defense-like behaviors evoked by pharmacological disinhibition of the superior colliculus in the primate.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2013

Stimulation of the intermediate and deep layers of superior colliculus (DLSC) in rodents evokes both orienting/pursuit (approach) and avoidance/flight (defense) responses (Dean et al., 1989). These two classes of response are subserved by distinct output projections associated with lateral (approach) and medial (defense) DLSC (Comoli et al., 2012). In non-human primates, DLSC has been examined only with respect to orienting/approach behaviors, especially eye movements, and defense-like behaviors have not been reported. Here we examined the profile of behavioral responses evoked by activation of DLSC by unilateral intracerebral infusions of the GABA(A) receptor antagonist, bicuculline methiodide (BIC), in nine freely moving macaques. Across animals, the most consistently evoked behavior was cowering (all animals), followed by increased vocalization and escape-like behaviors (seven animals), and attack of objects (three animals). The effects of BIC were dose-dependent within the range 2.5-14 nmol (threshold dose of 4.6 nmol). The behaviors and their latencies to onset did not vary across different infusion sites within DLSC. Cowering and escape-like behaviors resembled the defense-like responses reported after DLSC stimulation in rats, but in the macaques these responses were evoked from both medial and lateral sites within DLSC. Our findings are unexpected in the context of an earlier theoretical perspective (Dean et al., 1989) that emphasized a preferential role of the primate DLSC for approach rather than defensive responses. Our data provide the first evidence for induction of defense-like behaviors by activation of DLSC in monkeys, suggesting that the role of DLSC in responding to threats is conserved across species.
The two parts of the blackcap song: Acoustic analysis and male responses to playbacks.
Behavioural processes, 2015

Bird songs are complex manifold acoustic signals serving two main functions: mate attraction and territorial defense. The way information is encoded in the song often reflects adaptation to proximate and ultimate constraints. Male blackcaps, Sylvia atricapilla, display versatile songs with two parts, a warble and a whistle, whose functions remain unclear. We showed that the two parts of songs differ in terms of intensity, frequency and temporal parameters. They also contain totally different sets of syllables. Furthermore, the warble is versatile whereas the whistle part shows syllable sharing between individuals leaving closeby. Altogether, the results of our analysis suggest that the two parts encode different information potentially directed to different audiences. In order to test the potential function of these two parts, we performed playback experiments by broadcasting entire songs and each part separately. Warble and whistle alone are sufficient to trigger male responses and males sing both parts in responses to all stimuli, showing that both parts of the song are used in male-male competition. It is suggested that the segregation of information in the blackcap song could be related to public versus private communication, used in both intra- and intersexual contexts, rather than directed to male versus female audiences only.
Whisker movements evoked by stimulation of single motor neurons in the facial nucleus of the rat.
Journal of neurophysiology, 2008

The lateral facial nucleus is the sole output structure whose neuronal activity leads to whisker movements. To understand how single facial nucleus neurons contribute to whisker movement we combined single-cell stimulation and high-precision whisker tracking. Half of the 44 stimulated neurons gave rise to fast whisker protraction or retraction movement, whereas no stimulation-evoked movements could be detected for the remainder. Direction, speed, and amplitude of evoked movements varied across neurons. Protraction movements were more common than retraction movements (n = 16 vs. n = 4), had larger amplitudes (1.8 vs. 0.3 degrees for single spike events), and most protraction movements involved only a single whisker, whereas most retraction movements involved multiple whiskers. We found a large range in the amplitude of single spike-evoked whisker movements (0.06-5.6 degrees ). Onset of the movement occurred at 7.6 (SD 2.5) ms after the spike and the time to peak deflection was 18.2 (SD 4.3) ms. Each spike reliably evoked a stereotyped movement. In two of five cases peak whisker deflection resulting from consecutive spikes was larger than expected when based on linear summation of single spike-evoked movement profiles. Our data suggest the following coding scheme for whisker movements in the facial nucleus. 1) Evoked movement characteristics depend on the identity of the stimulated neuron (a labeled line code). 2) The facial nucleus neurons are heterogeneous with respect to the movement properties they encode. 3) Facial nucleus spikes are translated in a one-to-one manner into whisker movements.
Speed of reaction to sensory stimulation is enhanced during movement.
Acta psychologica, 2015

We report four experiments on the speed of people's reactions to sensory stimulation while throwing and catching a basketball. Thirty participants participated in Experiment 1, split according to basketball expertise: none, intermediate (6years on average), or advanced (20years or more). The participants had to catch a bouncing basketball. The movement triggered a short tactile pulse in a tactor attached to their wrist to which they made a speeded vocal response (RT). The pulse could be presented either at rest, at two time-points during the reaching movement, or when the hand reached forward to catch the ball. The results indicated that participants responded more rapidly to vibrations on the moving hand relative to preparing or catching the ball, with expert athletes responding significantly faster than novices. In a second experiment, participants made a speeded vocal response to an auditory signal. As in Experiment 1, faster auditory RTs were observed when the hand was moving, as compared to the other time-points. In a third study, the participants responded to a pulse delivered at their resting hand at various time-points corresponding to the average timings of stimulation in Experiment 1. The results revealed comparable RTs across the tested time-points. In a final experiment, the participants made a vocal response to a pulse presented at various time-points while they were throwing the basketball. The results indicated faster tactile RTs while the ball was being thrown. These results are discussed with reference to the literature on goal-directed movements and in terms of current theories of attention and sensory suppression.
Response to a combination of oxygen and a hypnotic as treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea is predicted by a patient's therapeutic CPAP requirement.
Respirology (Carlton, Vic.), 2017

Upper airway collapsibility predicts the response to several non-continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) interventions for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Measures of upper airway collapsibility cannot be easily performed in a clinical context; however, a patient's therapeutic CPAP requirement may serve as a surrogate measure of collapsibility. The present work aimed to compare the predictive use of CPAP level with detailed physiological measures of collapsibility.
Slow wave oscillations in Schizophrenia First-Degree Relatives: A confirmatory analysis and feasibility study on slow wave traveling.
Schizophrenia research, 2020

Abnormal sleep oscillations have recently been proposed as endophenotypes of schizophrenia. However, optimization of methodological approaches is still necessary to standardize analyses of their microstructural characteristics. Additionally, some relevant features of these oscillations remain unexplored in pathological conditions. Among others, slow wave traveling is a promising proxy for diurnal processes of brain connectivity and excitability. The study of slow oscillations propagation appears particularly relevant when schizophrenia is conceptualized as a dys-connectivity syndrome. Given the rising knowledge on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying slow wave traveling, this measure might offer substantial advantages over other approaches in investigating brain connectivity. Herein we: 1) confirm the stability of our previous findings on slow waves and sleep spindles in FDRs using different automated algorithms, and 2) report the dynamics of slow wave traveling in FDRs of Schizophrenia patients. A 256-channel, high-density EEG system was employed to record a whole night of sleep of 16 FDRs and 16 age- and gender-matched control subjects. A recently developed, open source toolbox was used for slow wave visualization and detection. Slow waves were confirmed to be significantly smaller in FDRs compared to the control group. Additionally, several traveling parameters were analyzed. Traveled distances were found to be significantly reduced in FDRs, whereas origins showed a different topographical pattern of distribution from control subjects. In contrast, local speed did not differ between groups. Overall, these results suggest that slow wave traveling might be a viable method to study pathological conditions interfering with brain connectivity.
Novel Food Supplement "CP1" Improves Motor Deficit, Cognitive Function, and Neurodegeneration in Animal Model of Parkinson's Disease.
Rejuvenation research, 2016

Based on pivotal roles of oxidative stress, dopaminergic and cholinergic systems on the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease (PD), the searching for functional food for patients attacked with PD from Cyperus rotundus and Zingiber officinale, the substances possessing antioxidant activity, and the suppression effects on monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) have been considered. In this study, we aimed to determine the effect of the combined extract of C. rotundus and Z. officinale (CP1) to improve motor and memory deficits, neurodegeneration, oxidative stress, and functions of both cholinergic and dopaminergic systems in the animal model of PD induced by 6-hydroxydopamine hydrochloride (6-OHDA). Male Wistar rats, weighing 180-220 g, were induced unilateral lesion at right substantia nigra by 6-OHDA and were orally given CP1 at doses of 100, 200, and 300 mg/kg body weight for 14 days after 6-OHDA injection. The results showed that the 6-OHDA rats treated with CP1 increased spatial memory, but decreased neurodegeneration, malondialdehyde level, and AChE activity in hippocampus. The decreased motor disorder and neurodegeneration in substantia nigra together with the enhanced catalase activity, but decreased MAO-B activity in striatum, were also observed. The memory enhancing effect of CP1 might occur through the improved oxidative stress and the enhanced cholinergic function, whereas the effect to improve motor disorder of CP1 might occur through the enhanced dopaminergic function in striatum by decreasing the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons and the suppression of MAO-B. Therefore, CP1 is the potential functional food against PD. However, further researches in clinical trial and drug interactions are essential.
Valproate impact and sex-dependent seizure remission in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy.
Journal of the neurological sciences, 2020

Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsy (IGE) management has become increasingly challenging due to the restricted use of Valproate (VPA) in females. The aim of the study was to assess possible differences in terms of seizure outcome between men and women suffering from IGE.
A sensorimotor control framework for understanding emotional communication and regulation.
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2020

Our research team was asked to consider the relationship of the neuroscience of sensorimotor control to the language of emotions and feelings. Actions are the principal means for the communication of emotions and feelings in both humans and other animals, and the allostatic mechanisms controlling action also apply to the regulation of emotional states by the self and others. We consider how motor control of hierarchically organised, feedback-based, goal-directed action has evolved in humans, within a context of consciousness, appraisal and cultural learning, to serve emotions and feelings. In our linguistic analysis, we found that many emotion and feelings words could be assigned to stages in the sensorimotor learning process, but the assignment was often arbitrary. The embodied nature of emotional communication means that action words are frequently used, but that the meanings or senses of the word depend on its contextual use, just as the relationship of an action to an emotion is also contextually dependent.