Neuroscience
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Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder and the most common type of dementia among older people. The number of patients with AD will grow rapidly each year and AD is the fifth leading cause of death for those aged 65 and older. In recent years, one of the main challenges for medical investigators has been the early diagnosis of patients with AD because an early diagnosis can provide greater opportunities for patients to be eligible for more clinical trials and they will have enough time to plan for future, medical and financial decisions. ⋯ We selected 50 percent of the MRIs randomly for use in training the classifiers, 25 percent for validation and we used 25 percent for the testing phase. The technique proposed here yielded the best overall classification results between AD and MCI (accuracy 94.88%, sensitivity 94.18%, and specificity 95.55%), and for pairs of the MCI and HC (accuracy 95.59%, sensitivity 95.89% and specificity 95.34%). These results were achieved using maximum order 30 of PZM and the pattern recognition network with the scaled conjugate gradient (SCG) back-propagation training algorithm as a classifier.
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The role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in lysosome-mediated neuronal death and survival following ischemic stroke remains unknown. Herein, using miRNA and mRNA gene expression profiling microarrays, we identified the differentially expressed 24 miRNAs and 494 genes in the cortical peri-infarct area, respectively. Integrating the miRNA targets and mRNA expression profiles, we found 47 genes of miRNA targets, including lysosomal-associated membrane protein 2 (LAMP2), Hexb, Bcl2, etc. ⋯ In addition, miR-207 mimics could reduce the number of cellular lysosome and autophagosome, whereas increase the number of autophagic vacuoles, indicating miR-207 might affect the latter part of lysosomal-autophagy pathway and mitochondria-induced apoptosis. These results suggested that miR-207 and miR-352 were involved in lysosomal pathway for mediating ischemic injury and spontaneous recovery. MiR-207 mimics as potential target drugs could protect against autophagic cell death after ischemic stroke.
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Extremely mild hypothermia to 36.0 °C is not thought to appreciably differ clinically from 37.0 °C. However, it is possible that 36.0 °C stimulates highly sensitive hypothermic signaling mechanism(s) and alters biochemistry. To the best of our knowledge, no such ultra-sensitive pathway/mechanisms have been described. ⋯ Neurons cultured at 36 °C also had increased global protein synthesis (GPS). Finally, we found that melatonin or fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) augmented RBM3 upregulation in young neurons cooled to 36 °C. Our results show that a 1 °C reduction in temperature can induce pleiotropic biochemical changes by upregulating GPS in neurons which may be mediated by RBM3 and that this process can be pharmacologically mimicked and enhanced with melatonin or FGF21.
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Electrophysiological studies demonstrate that the neural coding of pitch is modulated by language experience and the linguistic relevance of the auditory input; both rightward and leftward asymmetries have been observed in the hemispheric specialization for pitch. In music, pitch is encoded using two primary features: contour (patterns of rises and falls) and interval (frequency separation between tones) cues. Recent evoked potential studies demonstrate that these "global" (contour) and "local" (interval) aspects of pitch are processed automatically (but bilaterally) in trained musicians. ⋯ Chinese speakers showed differential pitch encoding between hemispheres not observed in English listeners; Chinese MMNs revealed a rightward bias for contour processing but a leftward hemispheric laterality for interval processing. In contrast, no asymmetries were observed in the English group. Collectively, our findings suggest tone-language experience sensitizes auditory brain mechanisms for the detection of subtle global/local pitch changes in the ongoing auditory stream and exaggerates functional asymmetries in pitch processing between cerebral hemispheres.
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Prenatal morphine exposure throughout pregnancy can induce a series of neurobehavioral and neurochemical disturbances by affecting central nervous system development. This study was designed to investigate the effects of an enriched environment on behavioral deficits and changes in hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels induced by prenatal morphine in rats. On pregnancy days 11-18, female Wistar rats were randomly injected twice daily with saline or morphine. ⋯ Prenatal morphine exposure reduced hippocampal BDNF levels, but enriched environment significantly increased BDNF levels in both saline- and morphine-exposed groups. Our results demonstrate that exposure to an enriched environment alleviates behavioral deficits induced by prenatal morphine exposure and up-regulates the decreased levels of BDNF. BDNF may contribute to the beneficial effects of an enriched environment on prenatal morphine-exposed to rats.