Plos One
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Endotoxin tolerance improves outcomes from gram negative sepsis but the underlying mechanism is not known. We determined if endotoxin tolerance before or after pneumococcal sepsis improved survival and the role of lymphocytes in this protection. ⋯ TLR4 stimulation before or after S. pneumoniae infection improved survival and was dependent on T-cells but did not require an intact complement cascade or functional B cells.
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Neuronal loss is a common component of a variety of neurodegenerative disorders (including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's disease) and brain traumas (stroke, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury). One brain region that commonly exhibits neuronal loss in several neurodegenerative disorders is the hippocampus, an area of the brain critical for the formation and retrieval of memories. Long-lasting and sometimes unrecoverable deficits caused by neuronal loss present a unique challenge for clinicians and for researchers who attempt to model these traumas in animals. ⋯ We found that we are able to inflict a consistent and significant lesion to the hippocampus, resulting in hippocampally-dependent behavioral deficits and a long-lasting upregulation in neurogenesis, suggesting that this process might be a critical part of hippocampal recovery. In addition, we provide novel evidence of angiogenic and vasculature changes following hippocampal neuronal loss in CaM/Tet-DTA mice. We posit that angiogenesis may be an important factor that promotes neurogenic upregulation following hippocampal neuronal loss, and both factors, angiogenesis and neurogenesis, can contribute to the adaptive response of the brain for behavioral recovery.
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Quadriceps muscle dysfunction is well confirmed in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and reported to be related to a higher risk of mortality. Factors contributing to quadriceps dysfunction have been postulated, while not one alone could fully explain it and there are few reports on it in China. This study was aimed to investigate the severity of quadriceps dysfunction in patients with COPD, and to compare quadriceps muscle function in COPD and the healthy elderly. ⋯ Quadriceps strength and endurance capabilities are both substantially impaired in Chinese COPD patients, with strength most affected. For the controls, physical activity is most important for quadriceps function. While for COPD patients, quadriceps dysfunction is related to multiple factors, with airflow limitation, malnutrition and muscle disuse being the main ones.
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Liver transplantation can prolong survival in patients with end-stage liver disease. We have proposed that the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score calculated on post-transplant day 7 has a great discriminative power for predicting 1-year mortality after liver transplantation. The Chronic Liver Failure-Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (CLIF-SOFA) score, a modified SOFA score, is a newly developed scoring system exclusively for patients with end-stage liver disease. This study was designed to compare the CLIF-SOFA score with other main scoring systems in outcome prediction for liver transplant patients. ⋯ The CLIF-SOFA score can increase the prediction accuracy of prognosis after transplantation. Moreover, the CLIF-SOFA score on post-transplantation day 7 had the best discriminative power for predicting 1-year mortality after liver transplantation.
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Isometric contractions can influence the way that we perceive pain, but conclusions on the dose-response effect of force amplitude on pain perception are limited because previous studies have not held the duration of force contractions constant while varying force amplitude. To address this issue we designed an experiment that allowed us to accurately guide the amplitude of an isometric pinch grip force contraction on a trial-by-trial basis, while a thermal pain eliciting stimulus was simultaneously delivered for the same duration to the non-contracting hand. Our results show that an increase in the amplitude of force produced by one hand corresponded with a decrease in pain perception in the opposite hand. Our observations provide novel evidence that the centralized inhibitory response that underlies analgesia is sensitive to and enhanced by stronger isometric contractions.