Neuroreport
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This study aimed to investigate the dysfunctional ascending/descending pain pathways at the thalamic level in patients with migraine without aura (MWoA) using the effective connectivity analysis of the resting-state functional MRI. Twenty MWoA and 25 matched healthy controls participated in the resting-state functional MRI scans. The directional interactions between the posterior thalamus (PTH) and other brain regions were investigated using the Granger causality analysis and choosing bilateral PTH as two individual seeds. ⋯ In addition, the abnormal inflows to the right PTH from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex correlated positively with the headache duration and pain intensity, respectively. The abnormal ascending/descending pain pathways between the thalamus and these cortical regions indicate a disrupted pain modulation in affective and sensory domains, which suggests a disequilibrium of pain inhibition and facilitation in MWoA. These findings may help to shed light on the pathophysiologic mechanisms of migraine.
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Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating injury causing significant morbidity and mortality. Experimental studies have demonstrated that SCI induced cellular damage and disruption of the blood-spinal cord barrier can initiate an autoimmune response. This response is thought to be pathogenic and contribute to poor outcome. ⋯ Amino acid sequence analysis of these spots identified peptides that mapped to glial fibrillary acidic protein. Our results suggest that ∼ 22% of SCI patients generated autoantibodies to glial fibrillary acidic protein. Future studies will be required to determine whether these autoantibodies contribute to the pathogenic sequelae of SCI.
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Lipoprotein (a) [Lp(a)] plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of deep vein thrombosis (DVT). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Lp(a) serum levels at admission could be a risk factor for DVT in Chinese patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS). A total of 232 patients with AIS were included in the study. ⋯ Visible by the receiver operating characteristic, the optimal cutoff value of serum Lp(a) levels for predicting DVT was projected to be 420 mg/l, yielding a sensitivity of 88.5% and a specificity of 75.4%. With an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.89 (95% CI, 0.84-0.94), Lp(a) exhibited greater discrimination in predicting DVT compared with Hs-CRP (AUC, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.69-0.85; P<0.01), HCY (AUC, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.68-0.84; P<0.01), and NIHSS score (AUC, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.66-0.82; P<0.001). Elevated serum Lp(a) levels were independent predictors of DVT in AIS patients in China, revealing the critical role played by Lp(a) in the pathogenesis of DVT.
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Early blind individuals are known to exhibit structural brain reorganization. Particularly, early-onset blindness may trigger profound brain alterations that affect not only the visual system but also the remaining sensory systems. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) allows in-vivo visualization of brain white matter connectivity, and has been extensively used to study brain white matter structure. ⋯ In the present study, we compare TBSS and TSA results of DTI scans from 12 early blind individuals and 13 age-matched sighted controls, with two aims: (a) to investigate white matter alterations associated with early visual deprivation; (b) to examine the relative sensitivity of TSA when compared with TBSS, for both deficit and hypertrophy of white matter microstructures. Both methods give consistent results for broad white matter regions of deficits. However, TBSS does not detect hypertrophy of white matter, whereas TSA shows a higher sensitivity in detecting subtle differences in white matter colocalized to the posterior parietal lobe.
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Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) generate acute disruptions of brain function and a subset of patients shows persisting cognitive, affective, and somatic symptoms. Deficits in the executive function domain are among the more frequent cognitive impairments reported by mTBI patients. By means of independent component analysis, event-related potential components from a visual cued go/nogo task, namely contingent negative variation (CNV) and NoGo-P3, were decomposed into distinct independent components that have been shown to be associated with the executive processes of energization, monitoring, and task setting. ⋯ Patients showed reduced amplitudes in the late CNV as well as in the early NoGo-P3 subcomponents. Whereas the decreased CNVlate component indicates an impaired ability to generate representations of stimulus-response associations and to energize the maintenance of response patterns, the reduced P3NOGOearly component suggests a deficient ability to invest attentional effort in the initiation of response patterns in mTBI patients. Besides indicating the effects of mTBI on cognitive brain processing, the results may open up the possibility for assessing individual mTBI profiles and facilitate personalized rehabilitative measures.