RESUMO
Background: Stroke is the second cause of mortality in the world and third leading cause of disability in surviving victims. Cerebral ischemic cascade involves multiple pathways that can result in motor and cognitive deficits. The current treatment strategy focuses mainly on motor recovery, and the management of post-stroke cognitive impairment is largely neglected. Similarly, very few studies have explored the prophylactic combined synergetic treatment strategies that have the potential to target multiple pathways in the ischemic cascade to alleviate vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) in the event of an ischemic stroke. Choline and docosahexaenoic acid (Cho-DHA) are both essential neuronal membrane phospholipid precursors, known to be important in enhancing cognitive functions. The objective of present study was to explore the prophylactic efficacy of combined Cho-DHA supplementation (Cho-DHA suppl.) in attenuating VCI in a rodent model of ischemic brain injury. Methods: An 10-months-old male Wistar rats were subdivided into four groups (n=8/group); normal control (NC), bilateral common carotid artery occlusion (BCCAO) induced ischemic brain injury group, sham BCCAO (S-BCCAO) group, and prophylactic combined Cho-DHA suppl. BCCAO group. Subsequently, all groups of rats were tested for cognition and neuro-morphological changes in the hippocampus. Results: BCCAO rats showed significant learning and memory deficits (p<0.05) and neuronal injury compared to S-BCCAO and NC rats. These cognitive deficits and neuronal injury were significantly (p<0.01) attenuated in Cho-DHA suppl. BCCAO rats. Conclusion: Prophylactic combined Cho-DHA suppl. may be envisaged as an effective preventive strategy to attenuate VCI and neuronal injury in high-risk individuals susceptible for a future event of an ischemic stroke.
RESUMO
Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is a behavioral neuropsychiatric disorder affecting an estimated 5% of school-age children worldwide with symptoms persisting into adulthood in 80% of cases. Presently clinical diagnosis and treatment of ADHD relies on behavioral disturbances than on detecting underlying defective brain regions. Therapeutic outcome in treatment of ADHD may be more positive if defective brain region in clinically diagnosed ADHD is detected by voxel based morphometric (VBM) analysis that measures voxel-wise global and regional focal volume differences in structural magnetic resonance images (sMRI) of brain. This study was designed to detect any region-specific gray matter (GM) volume defects in sMRI of ADHD adolescents by VBM analysis. Thirty sMRI datasets matched for sex, handedness of adolescents aged between 11.66 and 20.47 years (mean age 16.27±2.48 years) obtained from NeuroImage webpage, were selected (Control n=15; ADHD combined type n=15). These sMRI were analyzed by VBM technique and compared using statistical parametric mapping (SPM). Significant regional GM volume deficits (P<0.05) was specifically identified in left cuneus and middle occipital gyrus in ADHD, after voxel-wise false discovery rate correction over the whole brain compared to matched controls. Deficit of GM volume in occipital cortex detected by VBM analysis in ADHD children, suggests defects of visual processing affecting attention mechanisms.