منیره عزیزی

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia. Herbal medicines are increasingly recognized as alternative therapies with lower side effects.

This study aimed to investigate the protective effects of silibinin on cognitive function and the expression of neurotrophic factors in a rat model of AD.

Male Wistar rats (n = 40) were assigned to the sham group, lesion (Aβ40-1 injection), treatment group (Aβ40-1 injection followed by silibinin gavage in doses of 50 and 100 mg/kg), and vehicle group. The cognitive performance of the groups was evaluated using the Morris Water Maze behavioral test. Subsequently, brain tissue homogenates were prepared to measure BDNF and VEGF expression levels using the western blot technique. Also, the brain slices were stained with the Nissl technique and the neurons were counted in the hippocampal regions.

The mean number of neurons in the CA1 region in the lesion group was significantly reduced compared to the sham group (P = 0.004), however, treatment with silibinin has significantly increased the number of neurons in this region compared to the lesion group (P = 0.0002). Also, treatment with silibinin led to a significant increase in the levels of neurotrophic VEGF, and BDNF in the treated groups compared to the lesion group (P ≤ 0.05).

Findings showed the potential of silibinin in reducing the symptoms associated with Alzheimer's and protecting hippocampal neurons against disease-related damage by increasing the levels of BDNF and VEGF growth factors in the brain.

Determining the effectiveness of the joint attention program on expressive, receptive and spoken language components of children with autism spectrum disorder 3 to 5 years has been implemented.

The statistical population includes all children with autism spectrum disorder aged 3 to 5 years who had visited special preschools for children with autism spectrum disorders and clinics in Tehran. The research sample was accessible, which included 5 children who were randomly selected. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of Nyusha's growth assessment tools program, Gilliam's Autism Spectrum Disorder scoring scale (GARS 3) and the set of false belief tasks were used. Descriptive statistics, observational analysis, effect size and recovery percentage methods were used to analyze the data.

After the analysis, the results of the research also showed the average scores in the expressive and receptive language components after the implementation of the joint attention training program compared to the baseline, the trend of relative growth and overall improvement.

The results of this research indicate the effectiveness of the joint attention training program on improving the expressive, receptive and spoken language components of children with autism spectrum disorder. Therefore, it is suggested to use this educational program to improve the language skills of these children.

Because Joint attention provides the basis for learning core skills such as language,social communication, playfulness, mind theory, and behavior theory, it has become a target for therapeuticintervention for children with autism spectrum disorder. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identifyand develop the components of a joint attention education program with a synthesis research approach andbased on the principles of timely intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder.

used in this research is qualitative and Synthesis Research. The statistical community of researchsynthesis in this research includes all articles, theses and studies on joint attention training for children withautism spectrum disorder. that with that with the keywords of joint attention training; Joint attention programand autism spectrum disorder through search engines and English-language scientific resource databasesincluding Pup Med, Embase, PsycINFO, ProQuest, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Springer and the keywordsin addition to the above keywords of joint attention training and joint attention program were searched throughMagiran and SID Persian language databases.. Among these, there are 34 research articles in English andPersian, which were selected from among 60 published articles in the period from 2010 to 2021.

After analysis, coding and classification, the research results showed indicators. The componentsof joint attention training for children with autism in the age range of 3 to 5 years have been extracted basedon the components arising from the study of theoretical foundations and research background in the form ofresearch synthesis. Accordingly, joint attention training based on seven basic categories, including attentionrecognition, initiation of joint attention; Response to shared attention; Initiation of behavioral requests;Response to social interaction; The beginning of social interaction and response to behavioral requests issolid, and joint attention exercises and training activities can be designed, implemented and evaluated basedon these components. The content validity of the program in the Waltz and Basel method is generally equal to0.84, which indicates the appropriate and acceptable content validity for this program.

Diabetes is a metabolic disease with high blood sugar levels. Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) are able to express various growth factors and integrin-linked kinase (ILK) plays an important role in regulating various processes of cells. In this study, we investigated the effects of silybinin on the expression of vascular-endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and ILK under normal and high glucose conditions in OECs.

In this study, OECs were extracted from the olfactory mucosa of neonatal rats and cultured. Low (1,5M) and high (50,75 µM) concentrations of silybinin were added to the cell culture media under normal and high glucose conditions. At the end of the study, we measured the expression of VEGF and ILK proteins using western blot technique. Data were analyzed by ANOVA test.

Under high glucose conditions, low concentrations of silybinin maintained expression and at high concentrations silybinin caused a dose-dependent decrease in ILK significantly. However, under high glucose conditions, low concentrations of silybinin significantly decreased expression of VEGF but high concentrations of silybinin caused a significant dose- dependent increase in VEGF expression.

High glucose condition increased ILK and VEGF expression in the OECs, and treatment with lower concentrations of silybinin maintained ILK expression and decreased VEGF expression. Therefore, it seems that lower concentrations of silybinin can be effective in protecting cells from cytotoxicity due to diabetes hyperglycemia by stabilizing ILK and reducing VEGF levels.

Osteoporosis is one of the most common bone diseases that is caused by an imbalance between the activity of osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Osteoprotegerin (OPG) plays an active role in inhibiting osteoclasts by binding to the receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-B ligand (RANKL). The balance in the OPG/RANKL ratio is important in bone remodeling. The current study investigated and compared the effects of mumie extract and chemical drugs on cell proliferation, expression of OPG and RANKL in MG63 cells.

The effects of 100, 200 and 300 μg/ml of mumie extract on cell proliferation, expression of OPG and RANKL in MG63 cells were investigated in experimental groups, positive and negative control groups. Data were analyzed by ANOVA test.

Significant increases were observed in the proliferation of MG63 cells after exposure to 100 and 200 μg/ml concentrations of mumie extract. 200 μg/ml concentration of the extract significantly decreased the expression of RANKL and increased the expression of OPG. It also increased OPG/RANKL ratio significantly in the experimental groups, compared to those in the negative control groups. Although the effects of 100 μg/ml and 200 μg/ml concentrations were similar to each other, they showed no significant effects on the variables. 300 μg/ml concentration of the extract showed a reverse and insignificant effect.

200 μg/ml concentration of mumie extract had a significant effect on the expression of two important factors in bone remodeling. Therefore, individuals susceptible to osteoporosis can use mumie extract as an alternative to chemical drugs.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a serious clinical disorder, which involves the patient’s family as well as the community. After sever SCI, astrocytes of the central nervous system become reactive astrocytes, and produce glial scar which is a major obstacle to axons regeneration in the spinal cord. However, some studies have confirmed a spontaneous partial locomotor recovery in injured animals in the course of time and without any therapeutic interventions. Thus, in this study, locomotor function of animals with SCI was assessed to determine the exact scope of such a recovery through BBB (Basso, Bresnahan and Beattie) locomotor test during 20 weeks.
In this research, 18 adult male Wistar rats were used and randomly divided into 3equale groups: the normal control, the sham, the injured. Animals in the normal control group did not received any intervention, but for the sham and injured groups, laminectomy and contusion model in segment T10 of spinal cord were accomplished, respectively. Locomotor improvement of animals in all the groups was evaluated for 20 weeks.
Findings: According to our investigation, comparison of the results of locomotor assessment of the second week against that of the 20th week of the spinal cord injured group without treatment demonstrated a partial locomotor recovery, since the BBB score of lesion in these animals was 1.4 in the second week and reached up to 16 in the Twentieth week.
Discussion & Our Results showed that spontaneous locomotor recovery in animals with spinal cord defects increases after 20 weeks (from 16 21 score) in the course of time and without any therapeutic interventions

Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes constant irreversible functional deficits. Poor prognosis of such a disease prompts scientists to work on an effective way of treatment. Stem cell transplantation provides a promising strategy for such researchers. Using olfactory ensheathed cells (OECs) has, so far, indicated very good results. Hensce, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of transplanted OECs on functional recovery of delayed phase of SCI in rats.
In this survey, eighteen adult male wistar rats were divided into sham, control, vehicle, and treatment groups. Sham group received only laminectomy in the T9 segment of spinal cord, while in other groups, contusion model was induced following laminectomy.7 days after injury, DMEM medium alone or with OECs was injected to the vehicle and treatment groups, respectively. For cell culture, the olfactory mucosa of 7-day-old male wistar rats was used. Locomotor behavior of animals in all the groups was evaluated by BBB, (Basso, Bresnahan and Beattie) test.
Findings: Comparison of the results by the second week to the end of the study illustrated significant changing differences between the OECs receivers and the control group, (pDiscussion & Our investigation demonstrated a positive impact of the OECs on functional recovery in the delayed phase of SCI.

The use of opioid has a long history in Iran. In recent years, with the changing pattern of drug use from traditional to industrial, have increased the use of stimulants, especially methamphetamine. The purpose of this study was to compare the demographic characteristics of methamphetamine users with opioids in the selected addiction treatment center in Zahedan city.
This research was a descriptive-analytic study that was done in the period from April to March 2015 on the record of all users of methamphetamine or opioids who were referred to the selected addiction treatment center in Zahedan, numbering 156 people. The required information was collected from patient's records. Data analysis was done using chi-square and logistic regression through SPSS software (version 21).
Most of the participants were male (89.7%), less than 35 years (50.6%), married (59%), employed (60.3%) and primary or non-elementary education (35.9%). In terms of age, methamphetamine users were significantly younger than opioid users (P = 0.004). The two groups did not have a significant difference in terms of gender (P = 0.15), education level (P = 0.6) and marital status (P = 0.94). In addition, In terms of job, the most methamphetamine users unlike opioid users were unemployed (P = 0.01).
The findings of this study showed that the use of methamphetamine versus opioid has more prevalent in younger and unemployed people, therefore it can be prevented by promoting cultural and educational fields and creating an engagement for young people of the occurrence of such abnormalities in society.

Human serum albumin with its singular structure acts as a carrier mo-lecule that can attach to a variety of sub-stances. Any structural or functional chan-ges in albumin are accompanied with unde-sirable outcomes. In the present research، attachment of some ligands such as det-ergents (DTAB) and sugars (glucose) to albumin were evaluated at temperatures 27°C and 42°C. Tris-buffer solusion for albumin with a pH close to the pH of body was prepared. To denature albumin، hydrochloric acid was used. UV spectero-photometric technique was applied to eval-uate denaturation process. With increment of DTAB conc-entration the maximum optical absorption of albumin decreased. Glucose concent-ration at 400mg/dl level caused a profound change in the optical absorption of albumin that might affect the structure of the mo-lecule. Discussion & Glucose elevate-on has deleterious effects and deteriorates the function of many molecules in blood. The effects may exert on hormones، drug transportation، necessary ions and elements

Nowaday many diabetic patients interested in using medicinal herbs to relieve the symptoms of their disease in spite of the availability of synthetic drugs, one of such herbal medicine is green tea, studies about effects of this plant on blood glucose, weight of diabetes is contradict and suitable dosage is not mentioned, thus this study was done to determine the effect of green tea extract on blood glucose and body weight in male induced diabetic Rats. In this experimental study 40 wistar male Rats with body weight of 230±20 purchased and kept standard situation subsequently 8 of them considered as normal group and the reminder became diabetic by 50mg/kg IP by streptozotosin. After 2 weeks animals with blood glucose of 200-500 mg/dl were considered as diabetic and divided in 4 groups with 8 animals in each. Then 3 groups of them daily was feed with 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg of extract by feeding tube for 6 weeks, diabetic control group and non-diabetic group also was feed with DMSO10% as well. BS and body weight were assessed at 2nd, 4th, 6th week after daily feeding by different doses of green tea extract, and at last results were analyzed by using student t-test and one way ANOVA. The mean of blood glucose of diabetic control group were significantly higher than non-diabetic group and blood glucose of diabetic groups that was feed with 50, 100 and 200mg/kg of extract was significantly lower than diabetic control group. Body weight of 3 treatment groups were not significantly reduced. This study showed that green tea extract has an antidiabetic effect and suitable dosage of this extract was 100mg/kg.

Citrullus colocynthis (CCT) is used in traditional medicine to inhibit the implantation of embryos. The objective of this study was to determine the number of embryos per pregnancy and the mortality rate in pregnant mice. 115 vaginal plug-positive mice were divided into 4 groups. The animals were given 30, 60 and 120 mg/kg hydroalcoholic extract of CCT until 17th day of gestation. Control group was fed with solvent. At the day 17, the animals were sacrificed and the number of pregnant mice and embryos per pregnancy were counted. We found that while in 30 mg/kg group the mean number of embryos per pregnancy was around 10, no embryo was found in other groups. Furthermore, 3 out of 30 mice in 30 mg/kg group died, while in 60 mg/kg and 120 mg/kg groups the number of death was 7 and 14, respectively. In conclusion, CCT reduces the number of embryos and increases the mortality rate in pregnant mice in a dose-dependent manner.