Spinal cord stimulation in peripheral vascular pain

Results in 12 patients suffering from pain due to peripheral vascular pathology and treated with spinal neurostimulation are reported. The best results were obtained in stage III of vascular disease; however, our results indicate that regression of the pain symptom and healing of trophic lesions do not always correspond to any variation in blood flow.     

Spinal cord stimulation revisited: psychological effects

97 patients undergoing spinal cord stimulation (SCS) were studied for a median of 24 days after initiation of treatment. SCS was associated with significant improvement in memory, visuo-spatial integration, activation, cognitive efficiency, attention and overall psychological status. Significant emotional improvement in self-image, anxiety and depression was also confirmed following SCS. Diagnosis did not differentially affect psychological outcome except for relief of anxiety, which was less pronounced in the case of torticollis and multiple sclerosis. The role of spinal cord modulation of behavioral activation and physiological arousal was discussed.     

Yeast as a tool for apoptosis research

Apoptosis is a unique cell suicide process that plays important roles in a wide variety of developmental and normal physiological processes in animal species, and causes diseases when inappropriately controlled. Although yeast do not possess the proteases ultimately responsible for the morphological events recognized as apoptosis, these simple unicellular eukaryotes can serve as a powerful tool for apoptosis researchers. Ectopic expression of several human and animal apoptosis proteins in either budding or fission yeast results in phenotypes that create opportunities for genetic screens. Recent exploitation of yeast as tools for studying human apoptosis-regulatory proteins has yielded novel insights into cell death mechanisms, suggesting strategies for identification of genes and drugs that modulate the functions of proteins involved in apoptosis control.     

Photography as a research tool

This paper attempts to delineate a research design and method for using the photograph as a research tool. An analysis of the photograph's research suitability will consider its ability to structure “articulated visual statements” of the community and to generate “explanatory models” for analysis and interpretation. A significant aspect of the study is the material it offers for a discussion on an important methodological dimension for acquiring knowledge through visual research data. The question is not whether to use photographs as research tools, but how to fit the photograph into the research design and process.     

Spinal cord stimulation in the treatment of spasmodic torticollis

This report presents our observations in 63 patients undergoing chronic spinal cord stimulation for treatment of spasmodic torticollis. In this series there were 23 patients (36.5%) who demonstrated marked improvement, characterized by no evidence of torticollis, full range of motility of the head and neck and no pain. Moderate improvement was found in 20 patients (31.8%) who showed minimal residual torticollis, but had full motility and no pain. There were 5 patients (7.9%) considered mildly improved who demonstrated decrease in their torticollic position, spasms and pain, but retained some element of torticollis and/or some limitation of motility. Correlations were made demonstrating the effect on the results of age, sex, electrode array, the configuration of the applied field and the parameters of stimulation.     

Electrical stimulation as a biomimicry tool for regulating muscle cell behavior

There is a growing need to understand muscle cell behaviors and to engineer muscle tissues to replace defective tissues in the body. Despite a long history of the clinical use of electric fields for muscle tissues in vivo, electrical stimulation (ES) has recently gained significant attention as a powerful tool for regulating muscle cell behaviors in vitro. ES aims to mimic the electrical environment of electroactive muscle cells (e.g., cardiac or skeletal muscle cells) by helping to regulate cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions. As a result, it can be used to enhance the alignment and differentiation of skeletal or cardiac muscle cells and to aid in engineering of functional muscle tissues. Additionally, ES can be used to control and monitor force generation and electrophysiological activity of muscle tissues for bio-actuation and drug-screening applications in a simple, high-throughput, and reproducible manner. In this review paper, we briefly describe the importance of ES in regulating muscle cell behaviors in vitro, as well as the major challenges and prospective potential associated with ES in the context of muscle tissue engineering.     

The mescaline or strychnine spikes as a tool for physiological and pharmacological studies

The all-or-nothing spikes elicited by antidromic, afferent, or direct electrical stimulation of a cortical area treated with mescaline or strychnine were studied. These potentials are most probably originated in nonsynaptic dentritic membranes and their changes in amplitude and latency can be an index of the excitability of these structures. Several factors are considered as sources of error when measurements of such parameters are made to follow their changes in different experimental conditions. When these sources of error can be eliminated, the frequency, amplitude and latency of those spikes can be taken as an index of the variations in cortical excitability under some physiological conditions. Another use of these giant potentials can be for the study of humoral and pharmacological agents.     

Zebrafish as a tool in Alzheimer's disease research

Alzheimer's disease is the most prevalent form of neurodegenerative disease. Despite many years of intensive research our understanding of the molecular events leading to this pathology is far from complete. No effective treatments have been defined and questions surround the validity and utility of existing animal models. The zebrafish (and, in particular, its embryos) is a malleable and accessible model possessing a vertebrate neural structure and genome. Zebrafish genes orthologous to those mutated in human familial Alzheimer's disease have been defined. Work in zebrafish has permitted discovery of unique characteristics of these genes that would have been difficult to observe with other models. In this brief review we give an overview of Alzheimer's disease and transgenic animal models before examining the current contribution of zebrafish to this research area. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Zebrafish Models of Neurological Diseases.     

Functional genomics as a tool in virus research

Genomics is the study of an organism’s entire genome. It started out as a great scientific endeavor in the 1990s which aimed to sequence the complete genomes of certain biological species. However viruses are not new to this field as complete viral genomes have routinely been sequenced since the past thirty years. The ‘genomic era’ has been said to have revolutionized biology. This knowledge of full genomes has created the field of functional genomics in today’s post-genomic era, which, is in most part concerned with the studies on the expression of the organism’s genome under different conditions. This article is an attempt to introduce its readers to the application of functional genomics to address and answer several complex biological issues in virus research.     

Detergent resistance as a tool in membrane research

The biological membrane is a complicated matrix wherein different lipid environments are thought to exist. The more ordered or raft environment has been perceived biochemically accessible via its relative resistance to detergent. This paper outlines the protocols developed in our laboratory for the analysis of such detergent-resistant membranes (DRMs). We stress the fact that DRMs are artifactual in nature and should not be equivocated to lipid rafts, their usefulness being limited to assigning raft-association potential most convincingly when changes in DRM composition are induced by biochemically/physiologically relevant events. These protocols are completed in 1-2 d.     

Zebrafish as a tool in Alzheimer's disease research

Alzheimer's disease is the most prevalent form of neurodegenerative disease. Despite many years of intensive research our understanding of the molecular events leading to this pathology is far from complete. No effective treatments have been defined and questions surround the validity and utility of existing animal models. The zebrafish (and, in particular, its embryos) is a malleable and accessible model possessing a vertebrate neural structure and genome. Zebrafish genes orthologous to those mutated in human familial Alzheimer's disease have been defined. Work in zebrafish has permitted discovery of unique characteristics of these genes that would have been difficult to observe with other models. In this brief review we give an overview of Alzheimer's disease and transgenic animal models before examining the current contribution of zebrafish to this research area. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Zebrafish Models of Neurological Diseases.