نشریه دانشور پزشکی
پیاپی 141 (تیر 1398)

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder and oxidative stress plays an important role in the development of diabetic complications such as learning and memory impairment. Since Lavendula species improve learning and memory and Lavandula dentata contains antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects and it is used as ustokhoddus in Iran, we have designed this research to study its effects on diabetes-induced learning and memory impairment.
  Forty male rats were divided into 4 groups including control, control diabetic, healthy Lavendula dentata, and diabetic Lavendula dentata. A single dose of streptozotocin was used for diabetes induction in diabetic animals. After 6 weeks, Lavendula dentata treatment was performed as an intraperitoneal injection of 400 mg/kg for two weeks, 30 min before each behavioral test. The eight-arm radial maze method with two way repeated-measures ANOVA test were used to evaluate learning and memory and one-way ANOVA was used for comparing blood glucose between different groups.
  Diabetes caused learning and memory damage in the form of increasing working and reference memory errors and use of Lavendula dentata in the diabetic group caused a significant reduction in the number of related errors. Romian ustokhoddus also declined blood glucose in diabetic group.
  Lavendula dentata consumption in diabetic rats improved diabetes-induced learning and memory impairment. This effect might be mediate at least partly by decreasing blood glucose.

Satisfaction of patients has a major effect on improving the quality of services in dental clinics. This study was conducted to evaluate the satisfaction rate of patients referred to the Montazeri dental clinic.
  This cross-sectional study was performed on 450 patients from 9 departments of Diagnostic, Radiology, Prosthetics, Restorative, Endodontics, Periodontology, Orthodontics, Surgery and Implant of Montazeri Denal clinic. Patients referred to the health center responded to a researcher-made questionnaire containing two parts. The first part was demographic questions and the second part of the questionnaire was 24 questions in two clinical and non-clinical areas.
  The average satisfaction of patients was 3 out of 5 points, indicating the high level of satisfaction. The highest level of satisfaction was obtained from the orthodontic department. The highest satisfaction rate in non-clinical section was observed from the waiting room hygiene (physical environment), from the accountants (administrative section) and from the guide panels (facility section). In the clinical area, the highest level of satisfaction was related to the attitude of dentists.
  Satisfaction of patients referred to the Montazeri Dental clinic is desirable. Eliminating patient dissatisfaction improves the quality of dental services.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, in which cortical and hippocampus neurons death is the main target of neurodegeneration. In addition to extracellular beta amyloid accumulation and the production of neural tangles, one of effective factors in the pathology of Alzheimer's disease is vascular injury in the elderly including disturbance in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) function. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of pre-treatment with different concentrations of VEGF in a cellular model of Aβ-induced Alzheimer's disease.
  After culturing and passaging human neuroblastoma cells (SH-SY5Y), they were evaluated in control, control pretreated with different concentrations of VEGF (0.5, 1 and 2 nM), amyloid beta, amyloid beta with the same concentrations of VEGF, and amyloid beta pretreated with the most effective concentration of VEGF in addition to TRPM7 channels antagonist (2-APB) or AKT inhibitor. For assessment of cell viability, MTT assay was applied.
  Findings of this study showed that amyloid beta significantly reduces cell viability (p<0.001), VEGF pretreatment significantly increases cell viability in a concentration-dependent manner, and this beneficial effect was not observed in the presence of TRPM7 channels antagonist or AKT inhibitor.
  It is concluded that VEGF could prevent amyloid beta-induced reduction of cell viability and its beneficial effect is mediated through TRPM7 channels and PI3K/Akt signaling.

An increase in malondialdehyde and a decrease in the total antioxidant capacity associated with high blood glucose and insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes cause damage to the testicular tissue and structure. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of different aerobic training intensities on serum levels of malondialdehyde, total antioxidant capacity and testicular structure in male diabetic rats.
  In this study, 46 Wistar rats with an average weight of 205‏±‏45 grams were randomly assigned into four groups: healthy control, control of diabetic, diabetic with moderate-intensity interval training (MICT) and diabetic with high-intensity interval training (HIIT). The training groups trained the exercise program for 10 weeks by treadmill and their blood serum and testis tissue were collected after the last training session. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc test at a significance level of 0.05%.
  MICT and HIIT training caused a significantly decreased fasting blood glucose and MDA and significantly increased TAC in diabetic training groups compared to diabetic control group (p<0.05). Also, 10 weeks of MICT and HIIT training improved the testicular structure, especially the testis volume, seminiferous tubules volume, interstitial tissue volume and left testicle weight in diabetic training groups compared to the control group (p<0.05). There was also no significant difference between the changes for the two methods of MICT and HIIT exercises regarding dependent variables.
  It seems that two methods of MICT and HIIT training by reducing blood glucose, insulin resistance index and serum level of MDA and enhancement of TAC have positive effects on the improvement of testicular structure in diabetic rats. With these two methods of training, there were no different effects on mentioned variables.

Apoptosis plays a key role in the pathogenesis of a variety of cardiovascular diseases, especially cardiac failure. Therefore, the purpose of this study was investigating the effect of Origanum vulgare extract supplementation with and without exercise training on p53 and cytochrome c gene expression in myocardium of male rats.
  Nineteen three-month old male rats were randomly divided into three groups: control (Con), Origanum vulgare supplementation (OVS) and Origanum vulgare supplementation+exercise training (OVS+EX). Within three months of research, OVS and OVS+EX groups received 1 g/kg body weight of Origanum vulgare extract. Rats in OVS+EX group participated in the exercise training program for 12 weeks. Forty-eight hours after the last training session, the heart muscle of rats were extracted and mRNA of p53 and cytochrome c was evaluated by Real Time-PCR. One-way ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc tests were applied for statistical analysis of the data (p<0.05).
  p53 gene expression in OVS and OVS+EX groups was non-significantly lower than the Con group (21% and 28%, respectively, p˃0.05). However, cytochrome c gene expression in OVS+EX group was significantly lower than the Con group (62%, p<0.01).
  Overall, 12 weeks of Origanum vulgare extract supplementation did not affect the p53 and cytochrome c gene expression in myocardium of male rats. However, the addition of exercise training to Origanum vulgare extract supplementation significantly reduces the expression of cytochrome c.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia that is considered a chronic and progressive syndrome, that leads to the irreversible loss of neurons, particularly in the cortex and hippocampus. In this study, we considered whether nobiletin has any effect on behavioral function in elevated plus maze and forced swimming tests in amyloid beta-induced model of AD in the rat. 32 male rats were randomly divided into four groups as follows: group A (sham), group B (sham+nobiletin), which were administrated nobiletin (10 mg/kg) daily one hour after surgery for one week via gavage, group C (Aβ): which amyloid β1-40 (2 nanomol/2 µl) was injected into the hippocampal region (CA1) bilaterally, and group D (Aβ + nobiletin), which was also administrated nobiletin (10 mg/kg). Furthermore, two behavioral tests including elevated plus maze and forced swimming tests were used to assess performance.
  Analysis of performance in elevated plus maze showed a significant increase in open arm time in nobiletin-treated Aβ group versus Aβ group (p<0.05). In addition, performance in forced swimming test showed a non-significant decrease in nobiletin-treated Aβ group versus Aβ group.
  Taken together, these findings suggest that nobiletin could reduce anxiety in amyloid beta-induced model of AD in the rat with no significant effect on depression.