An Optimized Voxel-Based Morphometry of Gray Matter Reduction in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease

OBJECTIVE:Optimized voxel based morphometry (VBM) has been increasingly applied to investigate differences in brain morphology between a group of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) patients and control subjects. Optimized VBM permits comparison of gray matter (GM) volume at voxel-level from the entire brain. The purpose of this study was to assess the regional GM volume loss measured by optimized VBM in AD compared to controls METHODS:Twenty-three AD patients and 20 cognitively normal elderly control subjects included in this study. To improve the VBM performance, the study specific template and the probability maps were generated from the control subjects. RESULTS:Optimized VBM analysis revealed GM loss, including hippocampus, amygdala, anterior cingulate, posterior cingulate, insula, frontal lobe and middle temporal complex in the AD group as compared to normal control group CONCLUSION:The VBM results confirmed previous findings of temporal lobe and limbic lobe atrophic changes in AD, and suggest that these abnormalities may be confined to specific sites within that lobe, rather than showing a widespread distribution.

An Experimental Study on the Biological Specificity of Nitric Oxide and Nitric Oxide Synthetase in Periodontium-Related Cells / 대한치주과학회지

Bone remodeling is characterized by the coupling of osteoclast-mediated bone resorption and osteoblast-mediated bone formation. The process is tightly regualted at the local level by an incompletely known netwotk of peptide and non-peptide fators. Nitric oxide(NO), synthesized by nitric oxide synthetase(NOS) from L-arginine, is becoming recognized as an important bioregualtory molecule in a variety of tissue, but little is known about its possible role in periodontal tissue. The purpose of this study is to investigate the expression of nitric oxide synthetase(NOS) in inflamed gingiva and the effects of cytokine on the expression of NOS protein. The expression of NOS in gingival tissue was evaluated by immunohistochemical staining for NOS1, NOS2, NOS3. The effect of cytokine on the expression of NOS in human periodontal ligament cells and osteoblast-like HOS cells by western blot analysis. Further, we studied that NO functions in periodontal ligment cells as a regulatory molecule. PDL cells incubated with NOS inhibitor and donor. The protein expression, type I collagen & non-collagenous protein, nitrate production and cell proliferation were evaluated The results were as follows. 1. NOS1, NOS2, NOS3 was rarely distributed in healthy gingiva, but stronger stained in gingival epithelium, endothelial cells, and mononuclear cells of inflammed gingiva. 2. The cytokine stimulated NOS1, and NOS3 protein were not inducing or inhibitory effect to compared with control in PDL and HOS cells. 3.Incubation of cells with combination of TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma, LPS result in a time dependant increase in NOS2 expression, reaching a maximal level after 24 hours of stimulation. 4. The osteonectin protein inhibitory effect of NMA, inhibitor of NOS, was reversed by Larginine in dose dependant manner. 5. NMA decreased cell proliferation and nitrate production, but the inhibitory efffect of NMA was also prevented by the NO donor, sodium nitropruiside. These results suggest that exogenously synthesized NO was playing a stimulating effect on cell proliferation or on non-collagenous protein expression. Therefore NO have an important role in mediation of localized bone destruction associated inflammatory bone disease such as periodontitis