rudyvdbrink/CitationDatabase huggingface dataset:
The impact of the DWI-FLAIR-mismatch in the ECASS-4 trial - A post hoc analysis.
European stroke journal, 2020

To investigate the impact of a mismatch between diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) on functional outcome in patients with acute stroke in a prolonged time window or unknown time of symptom onset randomized to intravenous thrombolysis or placebo.
Reward-predictive cues elicit excessive reward seeking in adolescent rats.
Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 2020

Impulsive behavior during adolescence may stem from developmental imbalances between motivational and cognitive-control systems, producing greater urges to pursue reward and weakened capacities to inhibit such actions. Here, we developed a Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (PIT) protocol to assay rats' ability to suppress cue-motivated reward seeking based on changes in reward expectancy. Traditionally, PIT studies focus on how reward-predictive cues motivate instrumental reward-seeking behavior (lever pressing). However, cues signaling imminent reward delivery also elicit countervailing focal-search responses (food-port entry). We first examined how reward expectancy (cue-reward probability) influences expression of these competing behaviors. Adult male rats increased rates of lever pressing when presented with cues signaling lower probabilities of reward but focused their activity at the food cup on trials with cues that signaled higher probabilities of reward. We then compared adolescent and adult male rats in their responsivity to cues signaling different reward probabilities. In contrast to adults, adolescent rats did not flexibly adjust patterns of responding based on the expected likelihood of reward delivery but increased their rate of lever pressing for both weak and strong cues. These findings indicate that control over cue-motivated behavior is fundamentally dysregulated during adolescence, providing a model for studying neurobiological mechanisms of adolescent impulsivity.
Effects of Kainic Acid-Induced Auditory Nerve Damage on Envelope-Following Responses in the Budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus).
Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology : JARO, 2021

Sensorineural hearing loss is a prevalent problem that adversely impacts quality of life by compromising interpersonal communication. While hair cell damage is readily detectable with the clinical audiogram, this traditional diagnostic tool appears inadequate to detect lost afferent connections between inner hair cells and auditory nerve (AN) fibers, known as cochlear synaptopathy. The envelope-following response (EFR) is a scalp-recorded response to amplitude modulation, a critical acoustic feature of speech. Because EFRs can have greater amplitude than wave I of the auditory brainstem response (ABR; i.e., the AN-generated component) in humans, the EFR may provide a more sensitive way to detect cochlear synaptopathy. We explored the effects of kainate- (kainic acid) induced excitotoxic AN injury on EFRs and ABRs in the budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus), a parakeet species used in studies of complex sound discrimination. Kainate reduced ABR wave I by 65-75 % across animals while leaving otoacoustic emissions unaffected or mildly enhanced, consistent with substantial and selective AN synaptic loss. Compared to wave I loss, EFRs showed similar or greater percent reduction following kainate for amplitude-modulation frequencies from 380 to 940 Hz and slightly less reduction from 80 to 120 Hz. In contrast, forebrain-generated middle latency responses showed no consistent change post-kainate, potentially due to elevated "central gain" in the time period following AN damage. EFR reduction in all modulation frequency ranges was highly correlated with wave I reduction, though within-animal effect sizes were greater for higher modulation frequencies. These results suggest that even low-frequency EFRs generated primarily by central auditory nuclei might provide a useful noninvasive tool for detecting synaptic injury clinically.
Psychic blindness or visual agnosia: early descriptions of a nervous disorder.
Journal of the history of the neurosciences, 2011

This article briefly reports on three early contributions to the understanding of visual agnosia as a syndrome sui generis. The authors of the respective papers worked in different fields such as physiology, ophthalmology, and neurology, and, although they were not in direct contact with each other, their results converged upon a consistent view of a nervous disorder that they called psychic blindness.
Electrophysiological evidence that release from proactive inhibition reflects late semantic processing.
Psychophysiology, 2020

While proactive inhibition (PI) frequently occurs in response to novel stimuli due to interference from previously learned information, shifts in semantic category on a preceding trial lead to the attenuation of learning interference effects such as PI, resulting in significantly improved performance on short-term memory tasks. This study examined how the release from PI also leads to a reduction in semantic inhibition, as measured primarily through an event-related potential (ERP) electroencephalography (EEG) design. The study used Chinese characters denoting different categories (word nouns for categories such as plants, clothes, and flowers) to test short-term memory recall in a control group (same category/no PI release) and experimental group (different category/PI release). Both behavioral data (recall accuracy) and ERP responses for the N400 and Late Positive Component (LPC) at frontal, central, and parietal electrode sites were collected. Behaviorally, recall accuracy declined continuously on the initial three consecutive trials, regardless of group, while recall increased significantly on the last trial specifically for the experimental group, due to the shift in semantic category. We reported a significant interaction between group and electrode site for the LPC component, indicating that inhibition effects were still active for both groups at the initial memory encoding stage (corresponding to N400), with inhibition release in the experimental group occurring through later LPC processing. These results provide electrophysiological evidence that release from PI can be distinguished from semantic forms of processing through changes in amplitude over the course of learning.
Prior sleep problems and adverse post-traumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae of motor vehicle collision in the AURORA study.
Sleep, 2021

Many patients in Emergency Departments (EDs) after motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depressive episode (MDE). This report from the AURORA study focuses on associations of pre-MVC sleep problems with these outcomes 8 weeks after MVC mediated through peritraumatic distress and dissociation and 2-week outcomes.
Posterior fossa dural arteriovenous fistula presenting clinically as a carotid-cavernous fistula treated by a direct access cavernous sinus approach.
Journal of neurointerventional surgery, 2014

Dural arteriovenous fistulas (dAVFs) represent approximately 10-15% of all cerebral vascular malformations. Although dAVFs can occur anywhere in the brain, they occur most frequently in the cavernous and transverse-sigmoid sinuses. Posterior fossa dAVFs presenting clinically as carotid-cavernous fistulae (CCF) are rarely encountered in clinical practice. We discuss and illustrate an unusual case of a left posterior fossa dAVF that presented clinically with chemosis and early visual impairment, similar to that of CCF. This was subsequently treated by a direct access cavernous sinus approach. We describe the technique used to access the cavernous sinus directly in cases where conventional transvenous and transarterial routes have been exhausted.
Advances in understanding of Rett syndrome and MECP2 duplication syndrome: prospects for future therapies.
The Lancet. Neurology, 2020

The X-linked gene encoding MECP2 is involved in two severe and complex neurodevelopmental disorders. Loss of function of the MeCP2 protein underlies Rett syndrome, whereas duplications of the MECP2 locus cause MECP2 duplication syndrome. Research on the mechanisms by which MeCP2 exerts effects on gene expression in neurons, studies of animal models bearing different disease-causing mutations, and more in-depth observations of clinical presentations have clarified some issues even as they have raised further questions. Yet there is enough evidence so far to suggest possible approaches to therapy for these two diseases that could go beyond attempting to address specific signs and symptoms (of which there are many) and instead target the pathophysiology underlying MECP2 disorders. Further work could bring antisense oligonucleotides, deep brain stimulation, and gene therapy into the clinic within the next decade or so.
Photic preference of the short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica).
Neuroscience, 2014

The gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica) is a nocturnal South American marsupial that has been gaining popularity as a laboratory animal. However, compared to traditional laboratory animals like rats, very little is known about its behavior, either in the wild or in a laboratory setting. Here we investigated the photic preference of the short-tailed opossum. Opossums were placed in a circular testing arena and allowed to move freely between dark (0 lux) and light (∼1.4, 40, or 400 lux) sides of the arena. In each of these conditions opossums spent significantly more time in the dark than in the illuminated side and a greater proportion of time in the dark than would be expected by chance. In the high-contrast (∼400 lux) illumination condition, the mean bout length (i.e., duration of one trip on the light or dark side) was significantly longer on the dark side than on the light side. When we examined the number of bouts greater than 30 and 60s in duration, we found a significant difference between the light and dark sides in all light contrast conditions. These data indicate that the short-tailed opossum prefers the dark to the light, and can also detect very slight differences in light intensity. We conclude that although rats and opossums share many similar characteristics, including ecological niche, their divergent evolutionary heritage results in vastly different behavioral capabilities. Only by observing the behavioral capabilities and preferences of opossums will we be able to manipulate the experimental environment to best elicit and elucidate their behavior and alterations in behavior that can arise from experimental manipulations.
Forensic mental health service implications of COVID-19 infection in Nigeria.
Forensic science international. Mind and law, 2020

Forensic mental health services are fledgling in most African countries including Nigeria. The current formulation of such services in Nigeria is correctional psychiatry in addition to some hospital-based services. The COVID-19 pandemic presents significant challenges to the already fragile state of forensic mental health services within the country. Its impact includes limitation of access to and continuity of mental healthcare in prison as well as reduction in referrals from other services within the criminal justice system such as the police and the courts. Further tapering of previously less prominent aspects of forensic mental health service in the country such as the preparation of psychiatric court reports has also been observed. Forensic psychiatry training and research have equally been hampered by the pandemic. The lessons learnt from these challenges should offer practitioners and policy makers insight into strategic developmental objectives for the post-COVID era within services and training programmes.
Functional differences in spatial processing along an anterior-posterior axis: are there implications for the retrosplenial cortex?
Journal of neurophysiology, 2019

The retrosplenial cortex has recently received attention from the neuroscience community for its role in spatial processing and involvement in diseases such as Alzheimer's. Here, we discuss a recent study by Silson et al. (Silson EH, Gilmore AW, Kalinowski SE, Steel A, Kidder A, Martin A, Baker CI.
Concurrent sodium channelopathies and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis supports shared pathogenesis.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis & frontotemporal degeneration, 2020

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an invariably fatal adult-onset neurodegenerative disorder; approximately 10% of ALS is monogenic but all ALS exhibits significant heritability. The skeletal muscle sodium channelopathies are a group of inherited, non-dystrophic ion channel disorders caused by heterozygous point mutations in the
Intrinsic functional connectivity of blue and red brains: neurobiological evidence of different stress resilience between political attitudes.
Scientific reports, 2020

Conservatives are more sensitive to threatening/anxious situations in perceptual and cognitive levels, experiencing emotional responses and stress, while liberals are more responsive to but tolerant of ambiguous and uncertain information. Interestingly, conservatives have greater psychological well-being and are more satisfied with their lives than liberals despite their psychological vulnerability to stress caused by threat and anxiety sensitivities. We investigated whether conservatives have greater resilience and self-regulation capacity, which are suggested to be psychological buffers that enhance psychological well-being, than liberals and moderates. We also explored associations between intrinsic functional brain organization and these psychological resources to expand our neurobiological understanding of self-regulatory processes in neuropolitics. We found that conservatives, compared to liberals and moderates, had greater psychological resilience and self-regulation capacity that were attributable to greater impulse control and causal reasoning. Stronger intrinsic connectivities between the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and precuneus and between the insula and frontal pole/OFC in conservatives were correlated with greater resilience and self-regulation capacity. These results suggest the neural underpinnings that may allow conservatives to manage the psychological stress and achieve greater life satisfaction. This study provides neuroscientific evidence for the different responses of liberals and conservatives to politically relevant social issues.
The Human Respiratory System and its Microbiome at a Glimpse.
Biology, 2020

The recent COVID-19 pandemic promoted efforts to better understand the organization of the respiratory microbiome and its evolution from birth to adulthood and how it interacts with external pathogens and the host immune system. This review aims to deepen understanding of the essential physiological functions of the resident microbiome of the respiratory system on human health and diseases. First, the general characteristics of the normal microbiota in the different anatomical sites of the airways have been reported in relation to some factors such as the effect of age, diet and others on its composition and stability. Second, we analyze in detail the functions and composition and the correct functionality of the microbiome in the light of current knowledge. Several studies suggest the importance of preserving the micro-ecosystem of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microbes of the respiratory system, and, more recently, its relationship with the intestinal microbiome, and how it also leads to the maintenance of human health, has become better understood.
Changes in brain and behavior during food-based decision-making following treatment of anorexia nervosa.
Journal of eating disorders, 2021

Anorexia nervosa is a severe illness with a high mortality rate, driven in large part by severe and persistent restriction of food intake. A critical challenge is to identify brain mechanisms associated with maladaptive eating behavior and whether they change with treatment. This study tested whether food choice-related caudate activation in anorexia nervosa changes with treatment.
Intracranial Tubular Retractor Systems: A Comparison and Review of the Literature of the BrainPath, Vycor, and METRx Tubular Retractors in the Management of Deep Brain Lesions.
World neurosurgery, 2020

In neurosurgery, parenchymal injury resulting from focal exertion of pressure on retracted tissue is a common complication associated with the use of plate and self-sustaining retractors to access deep intraparenchymal lesions. Tubular retractors, including Vycor, BrainPath, and METRx, were developed to reduce retraction injuries via radial dispersion of force. Our study seeks to compare these retraction systems and assess their respective indications, benefits, and associated complications. A systematic review of PubMed MEDLINE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was performed. Twenty-nine articles (n = 289 patients) for BrainPath, 12 articles (n = 106 patients) for Vycor, and 3 articles for METRx (n = 31 patients) met the inclusion criteria. This report is the first formal comparison of the BrainPath, Vycor, and METRx tubular retraction systems. We found that all 3 retractors were effective in accessing intraparenchymal lesions. Although we found that the retractor systems were used more commonly in different locations and for different diseases, there was no significant difference in complications or mortality among the 3 retractors.
Fear of falling and falls in people with multiple sclerosis: A literature review.
Multiple sclerosis and related disorders, 2021

Fear of falling (FOF) is a widespread problem affecting about 60% of people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). Inflammatory lesions in the brain that are caused by the disease result in gait deficits and increase the risk of fall. Falls induce fear of falling and trigger a vicious circle, which in turn increases the likelihood of falling. Objective of this review was to provide an overview of existing research on the effects of FOF and therapy options in multiple sclerosis.
A glycolytic shift in Schwann cells supports injured axons.
Nature neuroscience, 2020

Axon degeneration is a hallmark of many neurodegenerative disorders. The current assumption is that the decision of injured axons to degenerate is cell-autonomously regulated. Here we show that Schwann cells (SCs), the glia of the peripheral nervous system, protect injured axons by virtue of a dramatic glycolytic upregulation that arises in SCs as an inherent adaptation to axon injury. This glycolytic response, paired with enhanced axon-glia metabolic coupling, supports the survival of axons. The glycolytic shift in SCs is largely driven by the metabolic signaling hub, mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1, and the downstream transcription factors hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha and c-Myc, which together promote glycolytic gene expression. The manipulation of glial glycolytic activity through this pathway enabled us to accelerate or delay the degeneration of perturbed axons in acute and subacute rodent axon degeneration models. Thus, we demonstrate a non-cell-autonomous metabolic mechanism that controls the fate of injured axons.
Intracerebroventricular administration of cigarette smoke condensate induced generalized seizures reduced by muscarinic receptor antagonist in rats.
Epilepsy & behavior : E&B, 2018

Tobacco smoking is considered the greatest risk factor for early death caused by noncommunicable diseases. Currently, there are more than one billion tobacco smokers in the world predisposed to many diseases including heart attack, stroke, cancer, and premature birth or birth defects related to the consumption of cigarettes. However, studies on the association between tobacco smoking and seizures or epilepsy are insufficient and not well documented. In the present study, the authors examined the convulsive effects of the intracerebroventricular administration of cigarette smoke condensate (CSC, 2μl/Rat) in rats and compared it with the intensity of seizures in the kainic acid (KA)-induced seizure model of epilepsy. The role of the cholinergic system was also investigated by testing the effect of the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChRs) antagonist atropine (2ml/kg) on CSC-induced seizures. The results indicate that a central injection of CSC produces an epileptic behavior similar to that induced by KA, the similarities include the following parameters: time latency of seizures, latency and duration of tonic-clonic seizures, duration of seizures, survival, and tonic-clonic rate. However, a pretreatment with atropine reduced seizures and all their parameters.
ELTD1 as a biomarker for multiple sclerosis: Pre-clinical molecular-targeted studies in a mouse experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis model.
Multiple sclerosis and related disorders, 2021

Multiple sclerosis (MS) and glioblastoma (GBM) are two distinct diseases that affect the central nervous system (CNS). However, perturbation in CNS vasculature are hallmarks of both diseases. ELTD1 (epidermal growth factor, latrophilin, and 7 transmembrane domain containing protein 1 on chromosome 1) is associated with vascular development, and has been linked with tumor angiogenesis. In glioblastomas, we detected over-expression of ELTD1, and found that an antibody targeting ELTD1 could increase animal survival and decrease tumor volumes in a xenograft GBM model. RNA-seq analysis of the preclinical data in the model for GBM identified that some of the molecular pathways affected by the anti-ELTD1 antibody therapy are also found to be associated with MS. In this study, we used molecular-targeted (mt) MR imaging and immunohistochemistry to assess ELTD1 levels in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a mouse model of MS. Specifically, we found that ELTD1 is readily detected in the brains of mice with EAE and is predominantly found in the corpus callosum. In addition, we found that the blood-brain barrier (BBB) was compromised in the brains of EAE mice using contrast-enhanced MRI (CE-MRI), as well as altered relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the brains and cervical spinal cords of these mice using perfusion imaging, compared to controls. These findings indicate that ELTD1 may be a promising biomarker for CNS-inflammation in MS.
Left-hemispheric predominance on appropriateness evaluation of restructuring during chunk decomposition problem solving.
Psychophysiology, 2021

Restructuring refers to achieving satisfactory solutions by breaking obstacles or forming novel associations in problem-solving. One critical question arises regarding how an appropriate solution is processed in our brain during the restructuring of problem representations. This study aims to explore the electrophysiological correlates of appropriateness evaluation of restructuring by employing a chunk decomposition task. During loose or tight chunk decomposition, participants needed to assess whether they could get a valid solution after probe removal from a source character chunk. As reflected by the late positive complex, the processing of appropriateness exhibited the greatest effect (appropriate vs. inappropriate) in left parietal regions for tight chunk decomposition, but exhibited insignificant differences across most brain regions for loose chunk decomposition. This study provides the first primary electrophysiological evidence that both hemispheres contribute to and the left hemisphere plays a predominant role in evaluating the appropriateness of restructuring in problem solving.