ABSTRACT
Stroke is a leading cause of death worldwide. Up to one thousand potential drugs or interventions have been developed to treat stroke, out of which ~160 have gone on to clinical trials. However, none of them has been successful. New insights into the molecular and cellular mechanisms of ischemia-induced injury are needed for discovering new therapeutic targets. Recently, Drosophila has been used to uncover new hypoxia-related genes. In this study, we describe an efficient and reliable assay with a sophisticated apparatus for studying the effects of oxygen deprivation on flies. Using this assay, wild-type flies were exposed to an anoxic environment for varying lengths of time, then the cumulative death rate and mobility recovery were systematically analyzed. We found that anoxia for over one hour caused lethality. The cumulative death rate on day 5 after anoxia was linearly and positively correlated with the duration of anoxia, and reached 50% when the duration was 2.5 h-3 h. We also found that the mobility recovery in normoxia was slow, as the climbing ability remained largely unchanged 4 h-6 h after 2.5-h of anoxia. We suggest that 2.5 h-3 h of anoxia and 4 h-6 h of recovery before mobility analysis are appropriate for future use of the anoxia assay.
Subject(s)
Animals , Behavior, Animal , Disease Models, Animal , Drosophila melanogaster , HypoxiaABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the dynamic changes of Trk(tropomyosin receptor kinase) and Akt(protein kinase B), and to explore the neuroprotective role and its mechanism of β-NGF (β-nerve growth factor) after focal cerebral ischemia. Methods A focal cerebral ischemia rat model was made and β-NGF was injected intra abdominally. The phosphorylation of Trk and Akt were tested by immunocytochemistry and Western blot assay. Results Trk receptor was increased obviously in the penumbra area after 8 h of infarction. The level of phosphorylated Trk(p-Trk) was increased after 2 h of infarction, while the level of phosphorylated Akt(p-Akt) had a decrease and then recovered gradually. The level of p Akt in cerebral ischemia group was decreased by 76.5% compared with that in control group after 8 h of infarction(P<0. 01). After the injection of β-NGF, the level of p-Trk was increased by 74.4% after 12 h of infarction(P<0.01), while the level of p-Akt was recovered significantly after 8 h of infarction, and had no statistical difference compared with the control group after 24 h of infarction (P>0.05). Conclusions Ischemia induces the activation and increased expression of Trk receptor, andβ-NGF may play a protective role in cerebral ischemia by increasing the phosphorylation of Trk and regulating the phosphorylation of Akt.
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Objective To study ocular motor function in patients with Parkinson disease.Methods Videonystagmography(VNG)was used for testing ocular saccade and smooth pursuit eye movement(SPEM)in 14 patients with idiopathic Parkinson disease and 10 age and sex-matched control subjects to compare the latency of saccades,the accuracy of saeeades and SPEMGain between two groups. Results The latency of saceades was found to be much more increased in PD group (291.23±46.25)ms than that in healthy group(244.45±23.11)ms(P＜0.05);and the accuracy of saccades was found to be decreased in PD group(87.98±6.1 6)as compared to that in healthy group (95.21±8.56)(P＜0.05).PD group was found to have more decreased SPEM gain(0.81±0.12)than that in healthy group(0.90±0.1 5)(P＜0.05). Conclusions The findings suggest that ocular motor function is abnormal in Parkinson disease patients.
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Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics of the patients with paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia(PKD)and it's diagnosis.Methods 33 patients with PKD were analyzed and followed up.Results Patients with PKD were liable to attacks provoked by sudden movement,startle,stress and hyperventilation and its clinical characteristics were dystonic postures,chorea,athetosis or ballism which lasted usually 3 to 10 seconds each time but never more than five minutes and recured ranging from several dozen times per day to several times per week.Moreover,patients never lost their consciousness during the attack and restored to normality during the interval.The age of onset of the disease was 4-18 years old.Eight patients had positive EEG findings,the rest of the patients' electrophysiology and neuroimaging examination showed no abnormality.All cases responded favorably to anti-epileptic drugs,especially carbamazepine.Conclusion PKD was characterized by movement induced,transient,local or generalized involuntary movement,and belonged to channelopathy.Antiepileptic drugs,particularly carbamazepine,were effective to PKD.The precise classification of the patients with paroxysmal dyskinesias is important for therapeutic decisions.
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Objective To observe the prognosis 90 days after attack and the correlation among various risk factors in patients with transient ischemic attack (TIA). Methods The data of 90 days follow up and related risk factors of 61 patients clinically diagnosed with TIA were analyzed.We also compared the prognosis of those patients according to the change on diffusion weighted imaging (DWI). Results The incidence of various kinds of severe vascular events in 61 patients within 90 days was 16.4% (10/61). Among the patients with abnormal change on DWI, the incidence was 50% (8/16). However the incidence was 4.7% (2/43) in the patients with normal DWI. There was a statistical difference between the two groups (P