Archives of Neuroscience
Volume:5 Issue: 1, Jan 2018

Context: Dysfunction of pain circuitry may alter normal pain perception, leading to neuropathic pain. The underlying mechanisms are still unclear, although several animal models of partial nerve injury have been developed.
This review aimed to describe some essential elements for understanding neuropathic pain after peripheral nerve injury and to discuss its mechanisms with an emphasis on interneuronal disinhibition.
Evidence Acquisition: A PubMed search was undertaken with no date restrictions, using a combination of the following keywords: “mechanisms”, “allodynia”, “peripheral nerve injury”, “neuropathic pain”, and “interneuronal disinhibition”. Then, relevant papers on the underlying mechanisms of neuropathic pain after peripheral nerve injury were selected.
Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain neuropathic pain, which are not necessarily independent of each other. Interneuronal disinhibition is one of the most promising hypotheses, which includes several possible mechanisms, such as death of inhibitory interneurons (1), reduced afferent drive to inhibitory interneurons (2), depletion of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) (3), GABA dysfunction (4), altered membrane properties of inhibitory interneurons (5), and specific glycine disruption (6). Currently, only some of these hypotheses are promising. Technical discrepancies among experimental studies are partially responsible for some of these controversial results.
Formerly neglected circuitries including the glycinergic system, as well as other disturbances such as shift of GABA activity, currently constitute the most promising hypotheses on neuropathic pain. Additional studies on cell types involved in nociceptive transmission and dorsal horn connectivity of the spinal cord are still needed for a better understanding of pain circuitry and its disorders.

The current knowledge on how to use stem cells therapeutically for improving motor function in patients with cerebral palsy is growing. The present review aimed at assessing clinical trials related to beneficial effects of stem cells in patients with cerebral palsy. Electronic searches including “stem cell” and “cerebral palsy” as keywords were conducted using PubMed, Ovid, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane library, and CINAHL till February 2016. Two assessors reviewed the methodological quality and eligibility of the retrieved articles, independently. Among 77 studies initially reviewed based on the keywords, only 6 clinical trials were identified that met the inclusion criteria. Pooled response rate of stem cell therapy to treat cerebral palsy was estimated by assessing the percentage of improvement with a gross motor function classification system score. The resulting pooled estimate indicated a 30.7% (95% CI: 25.80% to 35.69%) increase in the score, 1 to 6 months after cell transplantation. In this regard, the test for heterogeneity was statistically significant (I2 = 87.9%, χ2 = 41.22, P

Spondylolisthesis is a common skeletal disorder that is rather prevalent among human beings occurring at various areas of spinal cord particularly with higher prevalence in lumbosacral area. There are several risk factors contributing to the occurrence of spondylolisthesis especially in the lumbosacral area including multiple pregnancies, early age pregnancy, etc. The current study aimed at investigating the pregnancy history of females afflicted with spondylolisthesis and probing the relationship of such factors with spondylolisthesis.
Females with low back pain, afflicted with spondylolisthesis, and diagnosed based on the medical scanning were included in the study. The exclusion criteria comprised affliction with acute diseases, rheumatologic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and history of direct trauma to their cords. The patients were then, examined and the related questionnaires were filled in by the authors. The results were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0.
A total of 113 females with the mean age of 53.79 (SD = 10.79) years were studied; 74.3 % of the patients had a history of pregnancy prior to 20 years old. The spondylolisthesis most commonly observed in L4-L5 intervertebral area (49.6%), and grade I had the highest frequency (82.3%).
Early age and multiple pregnancies were considered important risk factors increasing the likelihood of developing spondylolisthesis. Provision of appropriate education about time for the first pregnancy and number of pregnancies, training, and raising public awareness can help to reduce this risk factor.

Genetic variability in drug metabolism affects its treatment with anti epilepsy drugs (AEDs). Allelic variations in genes include SCN1A and ABCB1. Encoding the AEDs’ target and drug transport proteins may affect the efficacy and tolerability of antiepileptic drugs. A study was designed to evaluate the frequency of the ABCB1- and the SCN1A-selected SNPs in the genotype and haplotype combination within the Iranian population who were affected by idiopathic refractory epilepsy (IRE). About 81 healthy normal samples and 34 probands, clinically diagnosed as one type of IRE, were selected. The genotype of the two SNPs in the SCN1A gene (rs2298771, rs7601520) and one SNP in ABCB1 (rs1045642) were determined in two groups by ARMS-PCR and PCR-RFLP, and confirmed by direct sequencing. The data analysis shows no statistically significant differences, and thus, the predicted haplotype frequencies (including the three SNPs) did not show any significant differences between the patients and the control groups.

The current study aimed at analyzing the effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) on reduction of depression symptoms in patients admitted to public, educational, and private hospitals in Ilam, Iran.
In the current clinical trial, pre-tests and post-tests were used to analyze data. The study population consisted of patients diagnosed with depression admitted to public, educational, and private hospitals of Ilam. After explaining the study objectives, 40 patients agreed to cooperate. The convenience sampling method was used in the current study through which patients were selected randomly and allocated into 2 groups of 10 and 20 stimulation sessions, respectively. The Beck depression inventory was used to collect data. The t test and Pearson correlation test were used in hypothesis assessment procedure.
The results of the current study revealed that TDCS reduced depression in the studied patients.
The duration of electrical current pulses to the brain is associated with the reduction of depression symptoms in patients with depression. No study demonstrated compatibility and incompatibility with this hypothesis. The counselling centers, institutes, university and other institutions can benefit from the results of the current and other similar ones.

The most common chronic disorder due to sudden change in the electrical activity of the brain is known as epilepsy. It causes millions of deaths every year and is the second major disorder after stroke. The epileptic process involves an abnormal synchronized firing of neurons usually characterized by recurrent seizures, which are highly complex, nonlinear and non-stationary in nature. Even between seizures, the epileptic brain is different from normal and pathological conditions. The classical methods fail to analyse the full dynamics in detecting epileptic seizure. The aim of this research was to quantify the dynamics of EEG signals between seizures and seizure-free intervals using entropy based complexity measures at multiple temporal scales. The complexity of epileptic seizure intervals is reduced because of degradation of structural and functional components. Thus, complexity measures are more robust to fully analyse the dynamics of these signals.
The publicly available data comprise of three different groups of EEG signals: 1, Healthy subjects; 2, Epileptic subjects during seizure-free intervals (interictal EEG); and 3, Epileptic subjects during seizure (ictal EEG); each of 100 EEG channel sample at 174 Hz were taken to quantify the dynamics in these signals. To analyse the improved understanding of the epileptic process, complexity-based techniques of Multiscale Sample Entropy (MSE) and Wavelet Entropy (Wentropy) including Shannon, log energy, and threshold, and sure and norm developed in Matlab 2015a, were employed to distinguish these conditions. Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon (MWW) test was used to find significant differences among various groups at 0.05 significance level. Moreover, the area under the curve (AUC) was computed by developing multi- receiver operating curve (ROC) in Matlab 2015a to find the maximum separation to distinguish these conditions.
The complexity of healthy and epileptic subjects (including both in the presence of seizures and without seizure) was computed using MSE and Wentropy at multiple temporal scales. The healthy subjects exhibited higher complexity than the epileptic subjects. Likewise, the complexity of ictal (seizure subjects) was higher than the interictal (without seizures). To distinguish healthy subjects (Set O) from epileptic (Set S) subjects, the highest separation was obtained using wavelet norm 1.1 (AUC = 0.999) followed by wavelet Shannon (AUC = 0.9944), MSE (AUC = 0.9727) and wavelet threshold (AUC = 0.942).
Optimal results using MSE were obtained at smaller scales whereas the wavelet entropies gave optimal results mostly at higher temporal scales. Moreover, the highest separation in form of AUC was obtained using the Wentropy method with norm parameter 1.1 to distinguish healthy (eye open) and epileptic seizure (ictal state) subjects followed by wavelet Shannon and MSE.

Nowadays, it has been suggested that the care of neurocritically ill patients in the Neurocritical Care Unit can outcome, hospitalization time and ICU stay. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical condition and outcomes of these patients in our setting.
We conducted a cross-sectional study in patients in the neurocritical care unit (NCCU) of Loghman Hakim hospital. The medical findings and outcome (discharge/death) were gathered in the data collection form. We used SPSS version 18 for statistical analysis with significant level A total of 432 patients, including 237 (56.2%) male and 185 (43.8%) female (P = 0.01) were enrolled. There was statistically no significant difference in the mean age between them (41.87 ± 18.52, 45.15 ± 16.26 respectively, P = 0.05). The most common admission diagnosis of patients was neuro-oncology (65.5%). The prolong length of stay (LOS) in NCCU (≥ 10) was found in 56 (13.5%). The highest rate of it was due to the neuro-oncology disease. There are statistically significant differences among the diagnosis groups in terms of age, LOS, and Charlson Comorbidity index (P = 0.002, P The outcome of neuro-critical ill patients and length of stay in ICU can improve using special care and facilities in the neurocritical care unit. According to our results, most of our patients had neuro-oncology disease, which makes it necessary to expand the treatment interventions and various specialties in care of NCCU.

Our previous study determined the alteration in behavioral test-related memory and movement in male rats exposed to extremely low frequency electromagnetic field (ELF-EMF). The molecular mechanism of the effect of ELF-EMF on brain damage of rat has not yet fully understood, thus the current study investigated the effect of ELF-EMFs on hippocampus of male rats by the proteomics approach. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of 50 Hz ELF-EMF at 0.5 and 1 mT 50 Hz for 2 and 4 weeks on male rats and determined protein expression of the hippocampus.
Effects of 0.5 and 1 mT exposures for 2 and 4 weeks on protein expression was determined via proteomics techniques. Statistical analysis of proteome was performed using the Progensis Same Spots software. Bioinformatics analysis based on network was used for determining the mechanism.
Two-DE electrophoresis gels determined the effect of ELF-EMF on rat hippocampus, indicating that protein expression was overall down-regulated by increasing ELF-EMF intensity and time. The detected differentially expressed proteins between the groups comprised of Sptan1, Dpysl2, Tpi1, Lap3, Vdac1, and Tppp. Almost all were cytoskeletal proteins, most of which were increased by intensity and time. These proteins attributed to impairment in short memory of hippocampus after exposure to ELF-EMF. The GO analysis based on network, enriched two important biological process, cytoskeletal neurons and metabolic process.
This study determined the effect of ELF-EMF, which led to change in protein expression related to the cytoskeleton that contributes to major processes in brain damage.

Organophosphates (OPs) and carbamates are acetylcholine esterase inhibitors (AChEIs), which can cause seizure and death. The anticonvulsant properties of potassium channel openers, including cromakalim, have been determined in previous studies.
In the present experiment, the possible effects of cromakalim on convulsion and death, induced by OPs and carbamates, were studied in mice. Dichlorvos as an OP compound (50 mg/kg) and physostigmine as a carbamate (2 mg/kg) were used to induce seizure in animals.
Cromakalim was injected at doses of 0.1, 10, and 30 µg/kg at 30 minutes before dichlorvos and physostigmine administration and 5 minutes before glibenclamide (a potassium channel blocker, 1 mg/kg) administration. All injections were performed intraperitoneally. Following that, the onset of convulsion, death, severity of seizure, and rate of mortality were investigated. The results showed that both dichlorvos and physostigmine induced seizure activity and death in 100% of the animals. Cromakalim at doses of 0.1, 10, and 30 µg/kg significantly increased the latency of both seizure and death (P This study, for the first time, revealed that cromakalim (an ATP-sensitive potassium channel opener) decreases the rates of seizure and death induced by dichlorvos and physostigmine in mice and presents a new opportunity to manage patients with OP- or carabamate-induced seizures.