Neuroscience letters
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Neuroscience letters · Mar 2020
Sevoflurane anesthesia-mediated oxidative stress and cognitive impairment in hippocampal neurons of old rats can be ameliorated by expression of brain derived neurotrophic factor.
Postoperative cognitive dysfunction in elderly patients has been related to neurodegenerative disorders and mortality. Sevoflurane anesthesia has been implicated in both postoperative cognitive dysfunction and neurotoxicity. Given the advantages of using inhaled anesthetics like sevoflurane, it is important to understand how their usage results in neurotoxicity and subsequently devise ways to circumvent or attenuate the anesthetic-mediated induction in neurotoxicity. ⋯ And the activation of PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathways are attenuated in sevoflurane-mediated anesthesia. Adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated expression of Bdnf, but not controls EGFP, attenuated sevoflurane-induced oxidative stress and cognitive impairment in the rats. Our results highlight that AAV-mediated gene therapy might offer a potential therapeutic opportunity to treat post-operative cognitive impairment resulting from inhaled anesthetics.
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Neuroscience letters · Mar 2020
A novel mouse model of mild traumatic brain injury using laser-induced shock waves.
Blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury (mild bTBI) has been a frequent battlefield injury in soldiers during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Understanding the pathophysiology and determining effective treatments for mild bTBI has become an international problem in the field of neurotrauma research. Contributing to this problem is a lack of an experimental model that accurately mimics the characteristics of mild bTBI. ⋯ We also observed an increase in 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine-positive, proliferating cells in the dentate gyrus during the acute phase and a subsequent decrease during the chronic phase. This model appears to be an accurate representation of the damage occurring in actual mild bTBI patients. We also found that an increase in cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus during the acute phase is the most prominent feature after a TBI.