Frontiers in neuroscience
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Frontiers in neuroscience · Jan 2019
Exosomes Derived From Bone Mesenchymal Stem Cells Ameliorate Early Inflammatory Responses Following Traumatic Brain Injury.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of mortality and disability worldwide. Although treatment guidelines have been developed, no best treatment option or medicine for this condition exists. Recently, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)-derived exosomes have shown lots of promise for the treatment of brain disorders, with some results highlighting the neuroprotective effects through neurogenesis and angiogenesis after TBI. ⋯ Furthermore, BMSCs-exosomes modulated microglia/macrophage polarization by downregulating the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (INOS) and upregulating the expression of clusters of differentiation 206 (CD206) and arginase-1 (Arg1). In summary, our result shows that BMSCs-exosomes serve a neuroprotective function by inhibiting early neuroinflammation in TBI mice through modulating the polarization of microglia/macrophages. Further research into this may serve as a potential therapeutic strategy for the future treatment of TBI.
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Frontiers in neuroscience · Jan 2019
Disrupted Intraregional Brain Activity and Functional Connectivity in Unilateral Acute Tinnitus Patients With Hearing Loss.
The present study combined fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF), regional homogeneity (ReHo), and functional connectivity (FC) to explore brain functional abnormalities in acute tinnitus patients (AT) with hearing loss. ⋯ By combining ReHo, fALFF, and FC analyses, our work indicated that AT with hearing loss had abnormal intraregional neural activity and disrupted connectivity in several brain regions which mainly involving the non-auditory area, and these regions are major components of default mode network (DMN), attention network, visual network, and executive control network. These findings will help us enhance the understanding of the neuroimaging mechanism in tinnitus populations. Moreover, these abnormalities remind us that we should focus on the early stages of this hearing disease.
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Frontiers in neuroscience · Jan 2019
miRNA-7a-2-3p Inhibits Neuronal Apoptosis in Oxygen-Glucose Deprivation (OGD) Model.
Neuronal apoptosis is a major pathological hallmark of the neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain damage (HIBD); however, the role of miR-7a-2-3p in the regulation of HIBD remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to explore the possible roles of miR-7a-2-3p in brain injury using a hypoxia-ischemia model in rats and oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) model in vitro. Firstly, we established the hypoxia-ischemia (HI) model and verified the model using Zea Longa scores and MRI in rats. ⋯ Lastly, we investigated the target genes of miR-7a-2-3p by using the prediction databases (miRDB, TargetScan, miRWalk, and miRmap) and verified the target genes with qRT-PCR in the HI rats. Bioinformatics prediction showed that Vimentin (VIM), pleiomorphic adenoma gene 1(PLAG1), dual specificity phosphatase 10 (DUSP10), NAD(P)H dehydrogenase, quinone 1 (NQO1) and tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily member 1B (TNFRSF1B) might be the targets of miR-7a-2-3p and the qRT-PCR confirmed that VIM increased in the HI rats (P < 0.01). In conclusion, miR-7a-2-3p plays a crucial role in the hypoxic-ischemic injury, and is associated with regulation of VIM.
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Frontiers in neuroscience · Jan 2019
The Neural Basis of Herding Decisions in Enterprise Clustering: An Event-Related Potential Study.
Herding behavior refers to the social phenomenon in which people are intensely influenced by the decisions and behaviors of others in the same group. Although several recent studies have explored the neural basis of herding decisions in people's daily lives (e.g., consumption decisions), the neural processing of herding decisions underlying enterprise behavior is still unclear. To address this issue, this study extracted event-related potentials (ERPs) from electroencephalographic data when participants (i.e., top executives in real enterprises) performed a choice task in which they judged whether to let their enterprises settle in an industrial zone when the occupancy rate of the industrial zone was either low or high. ⋯ The ERP results indicated that anticonformity choices induced a larger N2 amplitude than herding choices, demonstrating that participants might experience larger perceived risk and more decision conflict when they processed anticonformity choices. In contrast, we observed that herding choices induced a larger LPP amplitude than anticonformity choices, hinting that participants might experience better evaluation categorization and higher decision confidence when they processed herding choices. Based on these results, this study provides new insights into the neural basis of herding decisions made by top executives in business.
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Frontiers in neuroscience · Jan 2019
Application of Graph Theory for Identifying Connectivity Patterns in Human Brain Networks: A Systematic Review.
Background: Analysis of the human connectome using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) started in the mid-1990s and attracted increasing attention in attempts to discover the neural underpinnings of human cognition and neurological disorders. In general, brain connectivity patterns from fMRI data are classified as statistical dependencies (functional connectivity) or causal interactions (effective connectivity) among various neural units. Computational methods, especially graph theory-based methods, have recently played a significant role in understanding brain connectivity architecture. ⋯ Results: Our results show that graph theory and its implications in cognitive neuroscience have attracted the attention of researchers since 2009 (as the Human Connectome Project launched), because of their prominent capability in characterizing the behavior of complex brain systems. Although graph theoretical approach can be generally applied to either functional or effective connectivity patterns during rest or task performance, to date, most articles have focused on the resting-state functional connectivity. Conclusions: This review provides an insight into how to utilize graph theoretical measures to make neurobiological inferences regarding the mechanisms underlying human cognition and behavior as well as different brain disorders.