The Characteristic and Changes of the Event-Related Potentials (ERP) and Brain Topographic Maps before and after Treatment with rTMS in Subjective Tinnitus Patients

Objectives

To compare the event-related potentials (ERPs) and brain topographic maps characteristic and change in normal controls and subjective tinnitus patients before and after repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) treatment.

Methods and Participants

The ERPs and brain topographic maps elicited by target stimulus were compared before and after 1-week treatment with rTMS in 20 subjective tinnitus patients and 16 healthy controls.

Results

Before rTMS, target stimulus elicited a larger N1 component than the standard stimuli (repeating sounds)in control group but not in tinnitus patients. Instead, the tinnitus group pre-treatment exhibited larger amplitude of N1 in response to standard stimuli than to deviant stimuli. Furthermore tinnitus patients had smaller mismatch negativity (MMN) and late discriminative negativity (LDN)component at Fz compared with the control group. After rTMS treatment, tinnitus patients showed increased N1 response to deviant stimuli and larger MMN and LDN compared with pre-treatment. The topographic maps for the tinnitus group before rTMS -treatment demonstrated global asymmetry between the left and right cerebral hemispheres with more negative activities in left side and more positive activities in right side. In contrast, the brain topographic maps for patients after rTMS-treatment and controls seem roughly symmetrical. The ERP amplitudes and brain topographic maps in post-treatment patient group showed no significant difference with those in controls.

Conclusions

The characterical changes in ERP and brain topographic maps in tinnitus patients maybe related with the electrophysiological mechanism of tinnitus induction and development. It can be used as an objective biomarker for the evaluation of auditory central in subjective tinnitus patients. These findings support the notion that rTMS treatment in tinnitus patients may exert a beneficial effect.     

Whole-Brain Functional Connectivity Identification of Functional Dyspepsia

Recent neuroimaging studies have shown local brain aberrations in functional dyspepsia (FD) patients, yet little attention has been paid to the whole-brain resting-state functional network abnormalities. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether FD disrupts the patterns of whole-brain networks and the abnormal functional connectivity could reflect the severity of the disease. The dysfunctional interactions between brain regions at rest were investigated in FD patients as compared with 40 age- and gender- matched healthy controls. Multivariate pattern analysis was used to evaluate the discriminative power of our results for classifying patients from controls. In our findings, the abnormal brain functional connections were mainly situated within or across the limbic/paralimbic system, the prefrontal cortex, the tempo-parietal areas and the visual cortex. About 96% of the subjects among the original dataset were correctly classified by a leave one-out cross-validation approach, and 88% accuracy was also validated in a replication dataset. The classification features were significantly associated with the patients’ dyspepsia symptoms, the self-rating depression scale and self-rating anxiety scale, but it was not correlated with duration of FD patients (p>0.05). Our results may indicate the effectiveness of the altered brain functional connections reflecting the disease pathophysiology underling FD. These dysfunctional connections may be the epiphenomena or causative agents of FD, which may be affected by clinical severity and its related emotional dimension of the disease rather than the clinical course.     

Acute Mechanical Stretch Promotes eNOS Activation in Venous Endothelial Cells Mainly via PKA and Akt Pathways

In the vasculature, physiological levels of nitric oxide (NO) protect against various stressors, including mechanical stretch. While endothelial NO production in response to various stimuli has been studied extensively, the precise mechanism underlying stretch-induced NO production in venous endothelial cells remains incompletely understood. Using a model of continuous cellular stretch, we found that stretch promoted phosphorylation of endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) at Ser¹¹⁷⁷, Ser⁶³³ and Ser⁶¹⁵ and NO production in human umbilical vein endothelial cells. Although stretch activated the kinases AMPKα, PKA, Akt, and ERK1/2, stretch-induced eNOS activation was only inhibited by kinase-specific inhibitors of PKA and PI3K/Akt, but not of AMPKα and Erk1/2. Similar results were obtained with knockdown by shRNAs targeting the PKA and Akt genes. Furthermore, inhibition of PKA preferentially attenuated eNOS activation in the early phase, while inhibition of the PI3K/Akt pathway reduced eNOS activation in the late phase, suggesting that the PKA and PI3K/Akt pathways play distinct roles in a time-dependent manner. Finally, we investigated the role of these pathways in stretch-induced endothelial exocytosis and leukocyte adhesion. Interestingly, we found that inhibition of the PI3K/Akt pathway increased stretch-induced Weibel-Palade body exocytosis and leukocyte adhesion, while inhibition of the PKA pathway had the opposite effects, suggesting that the exocytosis-promoting effect of PKA overwhelms the inhibitory effect of PKA-mediated NO production. Taken together, the results suggest that PKA and Akt are important regulators of eNOS activation in venous endothelial cells under mechanical stretch, while playing different roles in the regulation of stretch-induced endothelial exocytosis and leukocyte adhesion.     

The effects of soil phosphorus on aboveground biomass are mediated by functional diversity in a tropical cloud forest

Plant and Soil - Soil phosphorus is a key driver of plant biodiversity and aboveground biomass (AGB) in tropical forests. A plant community’s ability to exploit such limiting resources may be...     

Inhibitory effect of α-ketoglutaric acid on α-glucosidase: integrating molecular dynamics simulation and inhibition kinetics

Abstract

The inhibition of α-glucosidase is used as a key clinical approach to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus and thus, we assessed the inhibitory effect of α-ketoglutaric acid (AKG) on α-glucosidase with both an enzyme kinetic assay and computational simulations. AKG bound to the active site and interacted with several key residues, including ASP68, PHE157, PHE177, PHE311, ARG312, TYR313, ASN412, ILE434 and ARG439, as detected by protein–ligand docking and molecular dynamics simulations. Subsequently, we confirmed the action of AKG on α-glucosidase as mixed-type inhibition with reversible and rapid binding. The relevant kinetic parameter IC₅₀ was measured (IC₅₀ = 1.738?±?0.041?mM), and the dissociation constant was determined (K_{i Slope} = 0.46?±?0.04?mM). Regarding the relationship between structure and activity, a high AKG concentration induced the slight modulation of the shape of the active site, as monitored by hydrophobic exposure. This tertiary conformational change was linked to AKG inhibition and mostly involved regional changes in the active site. Our study provides insight into the functional role of AKG due to its structural property of a hydroxyphenyl ring that interacts with the active site. We suggest that similar hydroxyphenyl ring-containing compounds targeting key residues in the active site might be potential α-glucosidase inhibitors. Abbreviations AKG alpha-ketoglutaric acid

pNPG 4-nitrophenyl-α-d-glucopyranoside

ANS 1-anilinonaphthalene-8-sulfonate

MD molecular dynamics.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma     

Store-Operated Ca2+ Channels Blockers Inhibit Lipopolysaccharide Induced Astrocyte Activation

The destruction of calcium homeostasis is an important factor leading to neurological diseases. Store-operated Ca²⁺ (SOC) channels are essential for Ca²⁺ homeostasis in many cell types. However, whether SOC channels are involved in astrocyte activation induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) still remains unknown. In this study, we used LPS as an exogenous stimulation to investigate the role of SOC channels in astrocyte activation. Using calcium imaging technology, we first found that SOC channels blockers, 1-[h-[3-(4-methoxyphenyl)propoxy]-4-methoxyphenethyl]-1H-imidazole (SKF-96365) and 2-aminoethyldiphenyl borate (2-APB), inhibited LPS induced [Ca²⁺]_i increase, which prompted us to speculate that SOC channels may be involved in LPS induced astrocyte activation. Further experiments confirmed our speculation shown as SOC channels blockers inhibited LPS induced astrocyte activation characterized as cell proliferation by MTS and BrdU assay, raise in glial fibrillary acidic protein expression by immunofluorescence and Western Blot and secretion of interleukin 6 (IL-6) and interleukin 1β (IL-1β) by ELISA. So, our studies showed that SOC channels are involved in LPS-induced astrocyte activation.     

Nicotine-Induced Neuroprotection Against Ischemic Injury Involves Activation of Endocannabinoid System in Rats

Nicotine has been reported to exert certain protective effect in the Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Whether it has a similar action in focal cerebral ischemia was unclear. In the present study, rats received either an injection of (?)-nicotine hydrogen tartrate salt (1.2 mg/kg, i.p.) or the vehicle 2 h before the 120 min middle cerebral artery occlusion. Neurological deficits and histological injury were assessed at 24 h after reperfusion. The content of endocannabinoids and the expression of cannabinoid receptor CB1 in brain tissues were determined at different time points after nicotine administration. Results showed that nicotine administration ameliorated neurological deficits and reduced infarct volume induced by cerebral ischemia in the rats. The neuroprotective effect was partially reversed by CB1 blockage. The content of the endocannabinoids N-arachidonylethanolamine and 2-arachidonoylglycerol, as well as the expression of cannabinoid receptor CB1 were up-regulated in brain tissues after nicotine delivery. These results suggest that endogenous cannabinoid system is involved in the nicotine-induced neuroprotection against transient focal cerebral ischemia.     

Effects of Sevoflurane on Self-Renewal Capacity and Differentiation of Cultured Neural Stem Cells

Sevoflurane anesthesia in infant rats can result in long-term cognitive impairment, possibly by inhibiting neurogenesis. The hippocampus is critical for memory consolidation and is one of only two mammalian brain regions where neural stem cells (NSCs) are renewed continuously throughout life. To elucidate the pathogenesis of sevoflurane-induced cognitive dysfunction, we measured the effects of clinical sevoflurane doses on the survival, proliferation, and differentiation of hippocampal NSCs. Neural stem cells were isolated from Sprague–Dawley rat embryos, expanded in vitro, and exposed to sevoflurane at 0.5, 1, or 1.5 minimal alveolar concentration (MAC) for 1 or 6 h. Two days after treatment, cell viability, cytotoxicity, and apoptosis rate were estimated by WST-1 assay, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity, and TdT-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling (TUNEL), respectively, while proliferation rate was assessed by 5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation and Ki67 staining. Differentiation was assayed 7 days after treatment by immunocytochemistry and Western blots of neuron and glial markers. The phosphorylation level of p44/42 extracellular regulated kinases (ERK1/2) was measured in the proliferation and differentiation phases respectively. Sevoflurane at 1 MAC or 1.5 MAC for 1 h increased viable cell number whereas a 6 h exposure at these same concentrations suppressed proliferation and promoted apoptotic death (P < 0.01). Sevoflurane had no effect on NSC differentiation, and a sub-clinical concentration (0.5 MAC) altered neither proliferation nor viability. The phosphorylation level of ERK1/2 increased after 1 h of 1 MAC or 1.5 MAC of sevoflurane exposure in the proliferation phase, but not in the differentiation phase. Brief (1 h) exposure to sevoflurane at clinical concentrations enhanced proliferation of cultured NSCs possibly mediated by ERK1/2, but a 6 h exposure suppressed proliferation and induced apoptosis. Prolonged sevoflurane exposure may decrease the self-renewal capacity of hippocampal NSCs, resulting in cognitive deficits.     

全反式维甲酸协同DAPT抑制胶质瘤干细胞的自我更新

前期研究脑表明,脑胶质瘤干细胞（glioma stem cells,GSCs）是胶质瘤发生和发展的重要因素,探索靶向干预GSCs生长有可能成为脑胶质瘤治疗的有效途径之一。该研究旨在阐明两种药物ATRA和Y-分泌酶抑制剂DAPT协同抑制GSCs自我更新的生物学效应。通过用台盼蓝排染法、克隆球形成试验和免疫印迹分析了两种药物的单独使用或联用对GSC样细胞PGCl和PGC2生长、成球能力和自我更新以及干细胞标志物表达的影响。结果发现,单独使用ATRA对PGCl生长有一定的抑制作用,而对PGC2生长几乎没有影响;DAPT对PGCs的生长抑制作用明显强于ATRA。高浓度ATRA（80μmol/L）能诱导PGCs的分化,降低PGCs成球大小,且成球效率降至5％～8％,而正常对照组为32％～35％;同样,DAPT（40μmol／L）也能降低PGCs成球大小,且成球效率降至2％～3％;低浓度ATRA（20μmol／L）和DAPT（5gmol／L）对PGCs自我更新能力和干性没有明显影响,而联合使用后其明显降低PGCs的成球大小,且成球效率降至3％～5％,促进细胞凋亡,并且明显抑制了干细胞标志物Nestin、CDl33、Sox2、Oct4的表达,提高了分化标志物GFAP的表达。该研究证明了低浓度的ATRA和DAPT能协同抑制脑胶质瘤干细胞PGCs的自我更新。研究结果将为脑胶质瘤的临床研究提供实验依据。