ABSTRACT
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the cerebellum is of increasing interest as a non-invasive technique to modulate motor performance and learning in health and disease. Previous studies have shown that cerebellar tDCS facilitates reach adaptation and associative motor learning in healthy subjects. In the present study it was tested whether cerebellar tDCS improves learning of a complex whole body motor skill. Because this task involves learning of posture and balance likely including learning of a new motor sequence and cognitive strategies, cerebellar tDCS was applied over midline cerebellar structures and the posterolateral cerebellar hemispheres. 30 young and healthy subjects performed two days of balance training on a Lafayette Instrument 16030 stability platform®. Participants received either anodal, cathodal or sham cerebellar tDCS during training on day 1. The cerebellar electrode (7 cm width by 5 cm height) was centered 2 cm below the inion. Mean platform angle deviation and mean balance time were assessed. All subjects showed significant effects of learning. Learning rate was not different between the three modes of stimulation neither on day 1 nor on day 2. Cerebellar tDCS did not facilitate learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in young and healthy subjects. tDCS effects, however, may have been missed because of the small group size. Furthermore, it cannot be excluded that young and healthy subjects learned and performed already at a near optimal level with little room for further improvement. Future work has to evaluate potential benefits of cerebellar tDCS in elderly subjects and subjects with cerebellar deficits, whose motor control and motor learning network is not optimally tuned.
ABSTRACT
The median survival of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) remains poor. Innovative immunotherapies with dendritic cell (DC) vaccination might be combined with standard temozolomide (TMZ) treatment. Here, we evaluated the influence of TMZ on the phenotype and function of DCs and CD8+ T cells. DCs were generated from the peripheral blood of healthy volunteers (HVs) and GBM patients. DCs were analyzed by light microscopy and flow cytometry. Phagocytic activity was tested by FITC-dextran engulfment. Mixed lymphocyte peptide cultures were followed by enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) and flow cytometry assays. TMZ was added to DC and T cell cultures at concentrations up to 500 µM. Mature DCs were generated from HVs and GBM patients. Cells displayed a typical DC morphology and a mature DC phenotype. Expression of CD209 was even higher in DCs generated from patients under therapy than from HVs (75.2 vs. 51.1%). In contrast, CD40 (1.1 vs. 13.5%) and BDCA4 (26.5 vs. 52.9%) were lower expressed in GBM patients at time of diagnosis. Immature DCs showed high phagocytic activity. Addition of TMZ at concentrations up to 50 µM did neither impair the phenotype nor the function of DCs. In ELISPOT and flow cytometry assays, no impairment of CD8+ T cell responses to viral antigens could be observed. Taken together, TMZ does not impair the function of either DCs or the CD8+ T cells.
