rudyvdbrink/CitationDatabase huggingface dataset:
Safinamide in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.
Expert opinion on pharmacotherapy, 2010

Current therapy for Parkinson's disease (PD) is primarily directed at reversing the motor symptoms that are the consequence of dopamine deficiency and includes levodopa, dopamine agonists and monoamine oxidase (MAO) B inhibitors. New drugs offering both dopaminergic and non-dopaminergic actions could offer a significant advantage.
Methamphetamine-induced enhancement of hippocampal long-term potentiation is modulated by NMDA and GABA receptors in the shell-accumbens.
Synapse (New York, N.Y.), 2016

Addictive drugs modulate synaptic transmission in the meso-corticolimbic system by hijacking normal adaptive forms of experience-dependent synaptic plasticity. Psychostimulants such as METH have been shown to affect hippocampal synaptic plasticity, albeit with a less understood synaptic mechanism. METH is one of the most addictive drugs that elicit long-term alterations in the synaptic plasticity in brain areas involved in reinforcement learning and reward processing. Dopamine transporter (DAT) is one of the main targets of METH. As a substrate for DAT, METH decreases dopamine uptake and increases dopamine efflux via the transporter in the target brain regions such as nucleus accumbens (NAc) and hippocampus. Due to cross talk between NAc and hippocampus, stimulation of NAc has been shown to alter hippocampal plasticity. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that manipulation of glutamatergic and GABA-ergic systems in the shell-NAc modulates METH-induced enhancement of long term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus. Rats treated with METH (four injections of 5 mg/kg) exhibited enhanced LTP as compared to saline-treated animals. Intra-NAc infusion of muscimol (GABA receptor agonist) decreased METH-induced enhancement of dentate gyrus (DG)-LTP, while infusion of AP5 (NMDA receptor antagonist) prevented METH-induced enhancement of LTP. These data support the interpretation that reducing NAc activity can ameliorate METH-induced hippocampal LTP through a hippocampus-NAc-VTA circuit loop. Synapse 70:325-335, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Intrathecal treatment trial of rituximab in progressive MS: An open-label phase 1b study.
Neurology, 2018

To perform a phase 1b assessment of the safety and feasibility of intrathecally delivered rituximab as a treatment for progressive multiple sclerosis (PMS) and to evaluate the effect of treatment on disability and CSF biomarkers during a 1-year follow-up period.
The current status of psychiatric education in Brazil.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England), 2020

The aim of this review is to present a brief historical perspective, the current status of psychiatric education in Brazil, discuss its role in Latin America, and its challenges ahead. The history of psychiatry in Brazil is intertwined with the history of medical assistance in Brazil. Psychiatric education in Brazil started in the asylum-centric era during the second half of the 19th century and evolved to occupy university teaching-hospital in the 20th century. The medical residency in psychiatry has shown considerable growth since its implementation 70 years ago. Undoubtedly, it currently occupies a prominent place in Brazilian medicine. However, there is a need to create and expand it in the less developed regions of the country. Brazilian psychiatric journals also have a leading position in developing evidence-based psychiatry in Latin America.
The precuneus may encode irrationality in human gambling.
Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual International Conference, 2016

Humans often make irrational decisions, especially psychiatric patients who have dysfunctional cognitive and emotional circuitry. Understanding the neural basis of decision-making is therefore essential towards patient management, yet current studies suffer from several limitations. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in humans have dominated decision-making neuroscience, but have poor temporal resolution and the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal is only a proxy for neural activity. On the other hand, lesion studies in humans used to infer functionality in decision-making lack characterization of neural activity altogether. Using a combination of local field potential recordings in human subjects performing a financial decision-making task, spectral analyses, and non-parametric cluster statistics, we analyzed the activity in the precuneus. In nine subjects, the neural activity modulated significantly between rational and irrational trials in the precuneus (p <; 0.001). In particular, high-frequency activity (70-100 Hz) increased when irrational decisions were made. Although preliminary, these results suggest suppression of gamma rhythms via electrical stimulation in the precuneus as a therapeutic intervention for pathological decision-making.
Brain synchronizability, a false friend.
NeuroImage, 2019

Synchronization plays a fundamental role in healthy cognitive and motor function. However, how synchronization depends on the interplay between local dynamics, coupling and topology and how prone to synchronization a network is, given its topological organization, are still poorly understood issues. To investigate the synchronizability of both anatomical and functional brain networks various studies resorted to the Master Stability Function (MSF) formalism, an elegant tool which allows analysing the stability of synchronous states in a dynamical system consisting of many coupled oscillators. Here, we argue that brain dynamics does not fulfil the formal criteria under which synchronizability is usually quantified and, perhaps more importantly, this measure refers to a global dynamical condition that never holds in the brain (not even in the most pathological conditions), and therefore no neurophysiological conclusions should be drawn based on it. We discuss the meaning of synchronizability and its applicability to neuroscience and propose alternative ways to quantify brain networks synchronization.
Inhibition of Kir2.1 channel-induced depolarization promotes cell biological activity and differentiation by modulating autophagy in late endothelial progenitor cells.
Journal of molecular and cellular cardiology, 2019

Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) play a crucial role in postnatal angiogenesis and neovascularization. Inward rectifier potassium channel 2.1 (Kir2.1) have been identified in EPCs. However, the effect of Kir2.1 on EPC function is not known. Here, we try to establish the role of Kir2.1 channels in EPC function and to provide first insights into the mechanisms.
High-resolution manometry combined with impedance measurements discriminates the cause of dysphagia in children.
European journal of pediatrics, 2015

Pressure-flow analysis allows assessing esophageal bolus transport in relation to esophageal pressures. This study aimed to characterize pressure-flow metrics in relation to dysphagia in paediatric patients. We analysed esophageal pressure-impedance recordings of 5 ml liquid and viscous swallows from 35 children (17 M, mean 10.5 ± 0.8 years). Primary indication for referral was gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) (9), post-fundoplication dysphagia (5), idiopathic dysphagia (16), trachea-esophageal fistula (2) and other (3). Peristaltic function was assessed using the 20 mmHg iso-contour defect and the timing between bolus pressure and flow was assessed using the Pressure Flow Index, a metric elevated in relation to dysphagia. Patients were stratified in relation to dysphagia and to peristaltic defect size. Dysphagia was characterized by a weaker peristalsis for liquids and higher Pressure Flow Index for viscous. When patients were stratified based on weak or normal peristalsis, dysphagia with weak peristalsis related to a larger iso-contour defect size and dysphagia with normal peristalsis related to higher Pressure Flow Index.
The medial preoptic nucleus integrates the central influences of testosterone on the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus and its extended circuitries.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2010

Testosterone contributes to sex differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function in humans and rodents, but the central organization of this regulation remains unclear. The medial preoptic nucleus (MPN) stands out as an important candidate in this regard because it contains androgen receptors and projects to forebrain nuclei integrating cognitive-affective information and regulating HPA responses to homeostatic threat. These include the HPA effector neurons of the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus, medial amygdala, and lateral septum. To test the extent to which androgen receptors in the MPN engage these cell groups, we compared in adult male rats the effects of unilateral microimplants of testosterone and the androgen receptor antagonist hydroxyflutamide into the MPN on acute restraint induced activation and/or neuropeptide expression levels. The basic effects of these implants were lateralized to the sides of the nuclei ipsilateral to the implants. Testosterone, but not hydroxyflutamide implants, decreased stress-induced Fos and arginine vasopressin (AVP) heteronuclear RNA expression in the PVN, as well as Fos expression in the lateral septum. In unstressed animals, AVP mRNA expression in the PVN decreased and increased in response to testosterone and hydroxflutamide MPN implants, respectively. The differential influences of these implants on AVP mRNA expression were opposite in the medial amygdala. These results confirm a role for androgen receptors in the MPN to concurrently modulate neuropeptide expression and activational responses in the PVN and its extended circuitries. This suggests that the MPN is capable of bridging converging limbic influences to the HPA axis with changes in gonadal status.
Comparative prediction of nonepileptic events using MMPI-2 clinical scales, Harris Lingoes subscales, and restructured clinical scales.
Epilepsy & behavior : E&B, 2017

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) is a psychological testing tool used to measure psychological and personality constructs. The MMPI-2 has proven helpful in identifying individuals with nonepileptic events/nonepileptic seizures. However, the MMPI-2 has had some updates that enhanced its original scales. The aim of this article was to test the utility of updated MMPI-2 scales in predicting the likelihood of non-epileptic seizures in individuals admitted to an EEG video monitoring unit. We compared sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratios of traditional MMPI-2 Clinical Scales against more homogenous MMPI-2 Harris-Lingoes subscales and the newer Restructured Clinical (RC) scales. Our results showed that the Restructured Scales did not show significant improvement over the original Clinical scales. However, one Harris-Lingoes subscale (HL4 of Clinical Scale 3) did show improved predictive utility over the original Clinical scales as well as over the newer Restructured Clinical scales. Our study suggests that the predictive utility of the MMPI-2 can be improved using already existing scales. This is particularly useful for those practitioners who are not invested in switching over to the newly developed MMPI-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2 RF).
Single-cell transcriptomes reveal molecular specializations of neuronal cell types in the developing cerebellum.
Journal of molecular cell biology, 2019

The cerebellum is critical for controlling motor and non-motor functions via cerebellar circuit that is composed of defined cell types, which approximately account for more than half of neurons in mammals. The molecular mechanisms controlling developmental progression and maturation processes of various cerebellar cell types need systematic investigation. Here, we analyzed transcriptome profiles of 21119 single cells of the postnatal mouse cerebellum and identified eight main cell clusters. Functional annotation of differentially expressed genes revealed trajectory hierarchies of granule cells (GCs) at various states and implied roles of mitochondrion and ATPases in the maturation of Purkinje cells (PCs), the sole output cells of the cerebellar cortex. Furthermore, we analyzed gene expression patterns and co-expression networks of 28 ataxia risk genes, and found that most of them are related with biological process of mitochondrion and around half of them are enriched in PCs. Our results also suggested core transcription factors that are correlated with interneuron differentiation and characteristics for the expression of secretory proteins in glia cells, which may participate in neuronal modulation. Thus, this study presents a systematic landscape of cerebellar gene expression in defined cell types and a general gene expression framework for cerebellar development and dysfunction.
Sleep benefits subsequent hippocampal functioning.
Nature neuroscience, 2009

Sleep before learning benefits memory encoding through unknown mechanisms. We found that even a mild sleep disruption that suppressed slow-wave activity and induced shallow sleep, but did not reduce total sleep time, was sufficient to affect subsequent successful encoding-related hippocampal activation and memory performance in healthy human subjects. Implicit learning was not affected. Our results suggest that the hippocampus is particularly sensitive to shallow, but intact, sleep.
Towards a functional neuroanatomy of pleasure and happiness.
Trends in cognitive sciences, 2009

The pursuit of happiness is a preoccupation for many people. Yet only the pursuit can be promised, not happiness itself. Can science help? We focus on the most tractable ingredient, hedonia or positive affect. A step toward happiness might be gained by improving the pleasures and positive moods in daily life. The neuroscience of pleasure and reward provides relevant insights, and we discuss how specific hedonic mechanisms might relate to happiness or the lack thereof. Although the neuroscience of happiness is still in its infancy, further advances might be made through mapping overlap between brain networks of hedonic pleasure with others, such as the brain's default network, potentially involved in the other happiness ingredient, eudaimonia or life meaning and engagement.
Psychopharmacology of Persistent Violence and Aggression.
The Psychiatric clinics of North America, 2016

Persistent violence not due to acute psychosis or mania can be managed only after appropriate characterization of the aggressive episodes (psychotic, impulsive, or predatory/planned/instrumental). The type of violence combined with the psychiatric diagnosis dictates the evidence-based pharmacologic approaches for psychotically motivated and impulsive aggression, whereas instrumental violence mandates forensic/behavioral strategies. For nonacute inpatients, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, traumatic brain injury, and dementia comprise the majority of individuals who are persistently aggressive, with impulsive actions the most common form of violence across all diagnoses. Neurobiological considerations combined with empirical data provide a comprehensive framework for systematic medication trials to manage persistently aggressive patients.
New surgical technique reduces the susceptibility artefact at air-tissue interfaces on in vivo cerebral MRI in the Göttingen minipig.
Brain research bulletin, 2009

Advanced and exclusive software solutions are offered to reduce susceptibility artefacts on MRI echo-planar sequences. We present a straightforward surgical technique to reduce the cortical distortion and signal loss that normally occur using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of the Göttingen minipig brain. Pronounced pneumatisation of the minipig cranium causes considerable susceptibility artefacts at the air/tissue interface around the frontal sinuses. Five Göttingen minipigs had burr holes drilled through the outer lamina of the skull bilaterally at the level of bregma. The underlying frontal sinuses were filled with a suspension of an MRI-compatible alginate. DTI was obtained before and after placing the medium in the sinus, quantifying the change using mutual information and Wilcoxon's rank-sum test. Fibertracking algorithms were applied to visualize the effect of treatment. We showed that the susceptibility artefacts were reduced at the air, bone and brain interfaces and that major cortical fiberbundles could be reliably visualized. This study demonstrated that DTI fibertracking of cortical bundles in experimental animals with extensive skull pneumatisation is feasible even when advanced software is unavailable.
A new interpolation-free procedure for breath-by-breath analysis of oxygen uptake in exercise transients.
European journal of applied physiology, 2014

Interpolation methods circumvent poor time resolution of breath-by-breath oxygen uptake (VO₂) kinetics at exercise onset. We report an interpolation-free approach to the improvement of poor time resolution in the analysis of VO₂ kinetics.
Age-Related Declines in Motor Performance are Associated With Decreased Segregation of Large-Scale Resting State Brain Networks.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2018

Aging is typically associated with substantial declines in motor functioning as well as robust changes in the functional organization of brain networks. Previous research has investigated the link between these 2 age-varying factors but examinations were predominantly limited to the functional organization within motor-related brain networks. Little is known about the relationship between age-related behavioral impairments and changes in functional organization at the whole brain (i.e., multiple network) level. This knowledge gap is surprising given that the decreased segregation of brain networks (i.e., increased internetwork connectivity) can be considered a hallmark of the aging process. Accordingly, we investigated the association between declines in motor performance across the adult lifespan (20-75 years) and age-related modulations of functional connectivity within and between resting state networks. Results indicated that stronger internetwork resting state connectivity observed as a function of age was significantly related to worse motor performance. Moreover, performance had a significantly stronger association with the strength of internetwork as compared with intranetwork connectivity, including connectivity within motor networks. These findings suggest that age-related declines in motor performance may be attributed to a breakdown in the functional organization of large-scale brain networks rather than simply age-related connectivity changes within motor-related networks.
Tacrolimus-induced nephrotoxicity in mice is associated with microRNA deregulation.
Archives of toxicology, 2018

Although Tacrolimus is an immunosuppressive drug widely used in renal transplantation, its chronic use paradoxically induces nephrotoxic effects, in particular renal fibrosis, which is responsible for chronic allograft dysfunction and represents a major prognostic factor of allograft survival. As molecular pathways and mechanisms involved in Tacrolimus-induced fibrogenic response are poorly elucidated, we assessed whether miRNAs are involved in the nephrotoxic effects mediated by Tacrolimus. Treatment of CD-1 mice with Tacrolimus (1 mg/kg/d for 28 days) resulted in kidney injury and was associated with alteration of a gene expression signature associated with cellular stress, fibrosis and inflammation. Tacrolimus also affected renal miRNA expression, including miRNAs previously involved in fibrotic and inflammatory processes as "fibromirs" such as miR-21-5p, miR-199a-5p and miR-214-3p. In agreement with in vivo data, Renal Proximal Tubular Epithelial cells exposed to Tacrolimus (25 and 50 µM) showed upregulation of miR-21-5p and the concomitant induction of epithelial phenotypic changes, inflammation and oxidative stress. In conclusion, this study suggests for the first time that miRNAs, especially fibromiRs, participate to Tacrolimus-induced nephrotoxic effects. Therefore, targeting miRNAs may be a new therapeutic option to counteract Tacrolimus deleterious effects on kidney.
Comparison of Natural Language Processing Rules-based and Machine-learning Systems to Identify Lumbar Spine Imaging Findings Related to Low Back Pain.
Academic radiology, 2018

To evaluate a natural language processing (NLP) system built with open-source tools for identification of lumbar spine imaging findings related to low back pain on magnetic resonance and x-ray radiology reports from four health systems.
LIMK-dependent actin polymerization in primary sensory neurons promotes the development of inflammatory heat hyperalgesia in rats.
Science signaling, 2014

Changes in the actin cytoskeleton in neurons are associated with synaptic plasticity and may also be involved in mechanisms of nociception. We found that the LIM motif-containing protein kinases (LIMKs), which regulate actin dynamics, promoted the development of inflammatory hyperalgesia (excessive sensitivity to painful stimuli). Pain is sensed by the primary sensory neurons of dorsal root ganglion (DRG). In rats injected with complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA), which induces inflammatory heat hyperalgesia, DRG neurons showed an increase in LIMK activity and in the phosphorylation and thus inhibition of the LIMK substrate cofilin, an actin-severing protein. Manipulations that reduced LIMK activity or abundance, prevented the phosphorylation of cofilin, or disrupted actin filaments in DRG neurons attenuated CFA-induced heat hyperalgesia. Inflammatory stimuli stimulated actin polymerization and enhanced the response of the cation channel TRPV1 (transient receptor potential V1) to capsaicin in DRG neurons, effects that were reversed by the knockdown of LIMK or preventing cofilin phosphorylation. Furthermore, inflammatory stimuli caused the serine phosphorylation of TRPV1, which was abolished by preventing cofilin phosphorylation in DRG neurons. We conclude that LIMK-dependent actin rearrangement in primary sensory neurons, leading to altered TRPV1 sensitivity, is involved in the development of inflammatory hyperalgesia.
Structure of the N terminus of a nonmuscle alpha-tropomyosin in complex with the C terminus: implications for actin binding.
Biochemistry, 2009

Tropomyosin is a coiled-coil actin binding protein that stabilizes the filament, protects it from severing, and cooperatively regulates actin's interaction with myosin. Depending on the first coding exon, tropomyosins are low molecular weight (LMW), found in the cytoskeleton and predominant in transformed cells, or high molecular weight (HMW), found in muscle and nonmuscle cells. The N- and C-terminal ends form a complex that allows tropomyosin to associate N terminus-to-C terminus along the actin filament. We determined the structure of a LMW tropomyosin N-terminal model peptide complexed with a smooth/nonmuscle tropomyosin C-terminal peptide. Using NMR and circular dichroism we showed that both ends become more helical upon complex formation but that the C-terminal peptide is partially unfolded at 20 degrees C. The first five residues of the N terminus that are disordered in the free peptide are more helical and are part of the overlap complex. NMR data indicate residues 2-17 bind to the C terminus in the complex. The data support a model for the LMW overlap complex that is homologous to the striated muscle tropomyosin complex in which the ends are oriented in parallel N terminus-to-C terminus with the plane of the N-terminal coiled coil perpendicular to the plane of the C terminus. The main difference is that the overlap spans 16 residues in the LMW tropomyosin complex compared to 11 residues in the HMW striated muscle overlap complex. We discuss the relevance of a stable but dynamic intermolecular junction for high-affinity binding to actin.