Journal of neuroscience methods
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J. Neurosci. Methods · May 2009
The use of motion analysis to measure pain-related behaviour in a rat model of degenerative tendon injuries.
Chronic tendinopathy is characterized with longstanding activity-related pain with degenerative tendon injuries. An objective tool to measure painful responses in animal models is essential for the development of effective treatment for tendinopathy. Gait analysis has been developed to monitor the inflammatory pain in small animals. ⋯ The change in double stance duration in the collagenase-treated rats was reversible by administration of buprenorphrine (p=0.029), it suggested that the detected gait changes were associated with pain. Comparisons of end-point and follow-up studies revealed the confounding effects of training, which led to higher gait velocities and probably a different adaptive response to tendon pain in the trained rats. The results showed that motion analysis could be used to measure activity-related chronic tendon pain.
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Increasing the spatial resolution in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) inherently lowers the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In order to still detect functionally significant activations in high-resolution images, spatial smoothing of the data is required. ⋯ The procedure is evaluated on human visual and sensory-motor mapping experiments. In these applications, the higher resolution could be fully utilized and high-resolution experiments were outperforming normal resolution experiments by means of both statistical significance and information content.
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Mar 2009
New method for quantification and statistical analysis of nociceptive reflex receptive fields in humans.
A method for quantifying nociceptive withdrawal reflex receptive fields in human volunteers and patients is described. The reflex receptive field (RRF) for a specific muscle denotes the cutaneous area from which a muscle contraction can be evoked by a nociceptive stimulus. The method is based on random stimulations presented in a blinded sequence to 10 stimulation sites. ⋯ The RRF area, RRF volume and location of the peak reflex response appear to be the most sensitive measures for detecting modulation of spinal nociceptive processing. This new method has important potential applications for exploring aspects of central plasticity in volunteers and patients. It may be utilized as a new diagnostic tool for central hypersensitivity and quantification of therapeutic interventions.
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Mar 2009
Case ReportsTemporally resolved differential proteomic analysis of human ventricular CSF for monitoring traumatic brain injury biomarker candidates.
A shotgun proteomic approach based on nanoflow liquid chromatography (nanoLC) in conjunction with matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight tandem mass spectrometry (MALDI TOF MS/MS) was utilized to quantitatively analyze the protein content of consecutive ventricular cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients on an individual basis. CSF was acquired from the lateral ventricle 1-9 days after the TBI incident by canula drain to investigate temporally resolved protein changes in three patients that required intracranial pressure monitoring during neurointensive care. ⋯ Certain suggested protein-biomarker candidates for TBI, like acute phase reactants (APRs), fibrinogens (FIB), cystatin C (CC) or more brain specific proteins like glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP) and neuron-specific enolase (NSE) were found to be significantly up-regulated which is in strong consistence with previously reported results. This methodology appears to be a promising tool for studying candidate biomarkers of neurovascular and traumatic brain injuries in the neurointensive care setting.
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Mar 2009
Von Frey's hairs--a review of their technology and use--a novel automated von Frey device for improved testing for hyperalgesia.
We describe a device which allows the mechanical sensitivity of trigeminovascular sensory neurons to be monitored over extended time periods. The device can be used to stimulate either the skin or dura mater and consists of a solenoid-driven plunger to which are fixed interchangeable von Frey hairs. ⋯ The advantages of the device over manual stimulation include the reproducibility of the site of stimulation; the ability to apply a known force for a known time; the ability to measure response latencies to millisecond precision and to compare them to latencies to other stimuli and; easy interface with computer-control. We discuss some of the drawbacks of the von Frey system as usually used and illustrate the use of the new device with results from experiments on peripherally induced sensitization.