The effectiveness of infrared thermography in patients with whiplash injury.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to visualize the subjective symptoms before and after the treatment of whiplash injury using infrared (IR) thermography. METHODS: IR thermography was performed for 42 patients who were diagnosed with whiplash injury. There were 19 male and 23 female patients. The mean age was 43.12 years. Thermal differences (ΔT) in the neck and shoulder and changes in the thermal differences (ΔdT) before and after treatment were analyzed. Pain after injury was evaluated using visual analogue scale (VAS) before and after treatment (ΔVAS). The correlations between ΔdT and ΔVAS results before and after the treatment were examined. We used Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging equipment of Dorex company for IR thermography. RESULTS: The skin temperature of the neck and shoulder immediately after injury showed 1-2℃ hyperthermia than normal. After two weeks, the skin temperature was normal range. ΔT after immediately injuy was higher than normal value, but it was gradually near the normal value after two weeks. ΔdT before and after treatment were statistically significant (p<0.05). VAS of the neck and shoulder significantly reduced after 2 week (p=0.001). Also, there was significant correlation between ΔdT and reduced ΔVAS (the neck; r=0.412, p<0.007) (the shoulder; r=0.648, p<0.000). CONCLUSION: The skin temperature of sites with whiplash injury is immediately hyperthermia and gradually decreased after two weeks, finally it got close to normal temperature. These were highly correlated with reduced VAS. IR thermography can be a reliable tool to visualize the symptoms of whiplash injury and the effectiveness of treatment in clinical settings.

Functional organization of a Schwann cell enhancer.

Myelin basic protein (MBP) gene expression is conferred in oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells by different upstream enhancers. In Schwann cells, expression is controlled by a 422 bp enhancer lying -9 kb from the gene. We show here that it contains 22 mammalian conserved motifs > or =6 bp. To investigate their functional significance, different combinations of wild-type or mutated motifs were introduced into reporter constructs that were inserted in single copy at a common hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase docking site in embryonic stem cells. Lines of transgenic mice were derived, and the subsequent qualitative and quantitative expression phenotypes were compared at different stages of maturation. In the enhancer core, seven contiguous motifs cooperate to confer Schwann cell specificity while different combinations of flanking motifs engage, at different stages of Schwann cell maturation, to modulate expression level. Mutation of a Krox-20 binding site reduces the level of reporter expression, whereas mutation of a potential Sox element silences reporter expression. This potential Sox motif was also found conserved in other Schwann cell enhancers, suggesting that it contributes widely to regulatory function. These results demonstrate a close relationship between phylogenetic footprints and regulatory function and suggest a general model of enhancer organization. Finally, this investigation demonstrates that in vivo functional analysis, supported by controlled transgenesis, can be a robust complement to molecular and bioinformatics approaches to regulatory mechanisms.

A combinatorial network of evolutionarily conserved myelin basic protein regulatory sequences confers distinct glial-specific phenotypes.

Myelin basic protein (MBP) is required for normal myelin compaction and is implicated in both experimental and human demyelinating diseases. In this study, as an initial step in defining the regulatory network controlling MBP transcription, we located and characterized the function of evolutionarily conserved regulatory sequences. Long-range human-mouse sequence comparison revealed over 1 kb of conserved noncoding MBP 5' flanking sequence distributed into four widely spaced modules ranging from 0.1 to 0.4 kb. We demonstrate first that a controlled strategy of transgenesis provides an effective means to assign and compare qualitative and quantitative in vivo regulatory programs. Using this strategy, single-copy reporter constructs, designed to evaluate the regulatory significance of modular and intermodular sequences, were introduced by homologous recombination into the mouse hprt (hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase) locus. The proximal modules M1 and M2 confer comparatively low-level oligodendrocyte expression primarily limited to early postnatal development, whereas the upstream M3 confers high-level oligodendrocyte expression extending throughout maturity. Furthermore, constructs devoid of M3 fail to target expression to newly myelinating oligodendrocytes in the mature CNS. Mutation of putative Nkx6.2/Gtx sites within M3, although not eliminating oligodendrocyte targeting, significantly decreases transgene expression levels. High-level and continuous expression is conferred to myelinating or remyelinating Schwann cells by M4. In addition, when isolated from surrounding MBP sequences, M3 confers transient expression to Schwann cells elaborating myelin. These observations define the in vivo regulatory roles played by conserved noncoding MBP sequences and lead to a combinatorial model in which different regulatory modules are engaged during primary myelination, myelin maintenance, and remyelination.