Basic and Clinical Neuroscience
Volume:4 Issue: 1, Winter 2013

Cholinergic and GABAergic fibers in the medial septal/diagonal band of Broca (MS/DB) area project to the hippocampus and constitute the septo-hippocampal pathway, which has been proven in learning and memory. In addition, the hippocampus has bidirectional connections with the septum, which use this relation for self-regulation of cholinergic input. The activity of septal and hippocampal neurons is modulated by several neurotransmitters including glutamatergic neurons from the entorhinal cortex, serotonergic fibers from the raphe nucleus, dopaminergic neurons from the ventral tegmental area (VTA), histaminergic cells from the tuberomammillary nucleus and adrenergic fibers from the locus coeruleus (LC). Thus, changes in the glutamatergic, serotonergic and etc. mediated transmission in the MS/DB may influence cholinergic or GABAergic transmission in the hippocampus.

The quality of life (QOL) has been defined as ‘‘a person’s sense of well-being that stems from satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the areas of life that are important to him/her’’. Also; Age was also significantly associated with several functional limitations such as illness, physical restrictions. The concept of ‘‘resilience’’ refers to successful adaptation that unfolds within a context of significant and usually debilitating adversity or life stress. The ability to adapt to pain may play an important role in maintaining the QOL. In this study, we investigated the role of resilience and Age in various domains of quality of life such as physical, psychological, social and environmental domains. In this study, 290 adult patients (146 men, 144 women) completed the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale and the WHOQOL-BREF Questionnaire. Moreover, we illustrated several demographic variables. The results were analyzed using SPSS version 19.0 and means, descriptive correlation and regression were calculated. Our data revealed that resilience and age could significantly anticipate the QOL and physical aspect P<0.001). In psychological, social and environmental domains resilience but not the age could significantly prediction this domains. In addition, it is noticeable that the effect of resilience on the prediction of QOL is much more obvious in the psychological domain.. In conclusion, resilience is more important factor than the age to predict the quality of life (QOL) in person suffering from chronic pain.

Ciprofloxacin which was used in this study is a Fluoroquinolone (FQ). This kind of drug may cause epileptic seizures probably because of the inhibition of GABA binding to its receptors. Wag/Rij rats (an animal model for generalized absence epilepsy), were used as experimental subjects. For EEG study, electrodes were inserted into the cortex of animals according to paxinos coordinates. After and before ciprofloxacin injection, EEG was recorded and their SWDs were compared with each others. Findings showed a significant increase in the mean number of seizures during recording period. But the mean number of SWDs during seizures did not show any significant differences between groups. These results may be due to involvement of GABA antagonistic effects of FQs and/or Mg2+ linked blockade of NMDA receptors. More researches are going to determine physiopathology of SWDs and find new effective substance against this kind of epilepsy.

Epilepsy is a complex pervasive neurobehavioral and social condition accompanied by a wide range of comorbid conditions that can adversely affect the quality of life of patients. Sleep complaints are common among patients with epilepsy. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of subjective sleep disturbances and its effects on sleep quality in epileptic patients. In this cross-sectional study, we interview with 152 consecutive epileptic patients and 152 control people. We used Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Insomnia Severity Index, Berlin Questionnaire and Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index to measure excessive daytime sleepiness, insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea and sleep quality. We diagnosed restless leg syndrome using three questions. The age, gender and average total sleep time was similar in patients and control group. The frequency of excessive sleepiness scale and subjective complaint of sleep maintenance was higher in epileptic patients than control group (P<0.05). The symptoms of Restless leg syndrome were reported by 32.3% of patients and 11.8% of controls (P<0.05). Daytime sleepiness, difficulty in sleep maintenance, poor sleep quality and RLS appear to be common in patients with epilepsy. Further confirmatory studies are needed using objective sleep studies to detect underlying mechanisms of sleep disorders in these patients.

Amnesia or loss of memory is the cardinal hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with ageing process. Although, AD had been discovered over a century ago, drugs which could cure or halt the progression of the disease are yet to see the light of the day. However, there has been a growing interest in the use of phytomedicines with multipronged mechanisms of action that could target various aspects of the pathologies of AD. Jobelyn (JB) is a potent antioxidant African polyherbal formulation with active components that have been acclaimed to show neuroprotection. T his investigation was carried out to evaluate whether JB has anti-amnesic and antioxidant activities. The alteration of alternation behavior in the Y-maze paradigm was utilized as the test for memory function in mice. The effect of JB on a cetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity, malondialdehyde (MDA) level and the concentrations of glutathione (GSH) in the frontal cortex and hippocampus were assessed in rats as means of providing insight into the mechanism underlying its anti-amnesic activity. The animals were given JB (1, 2.5 or 5mg/kg, i.p.) daily for 7 days before the biochemical assays or test for memory functions were carried out. JB was found to produce a significant increase in the level of alternation behavior compared with the control, suggesting anti-amnesic activity. Also, JB reversed the memory impairment induced by scopolamine, which further indicates anti-amnesic property. Furthermore, JB demonstrated a significant inhibition of MDA formation in the frontal cortex and hippocampus of rats, indicating antioxidant property. In addition, it increased the defense armory of the brain tissues, as it significantly increased the concentrations of GSH in the frontal cortex and hippocampus of rats. However, JB did not demonstrate any inhibitory effect against AChE activity in the frontal cortex and hippocampus of rats in comparison with the control group. This investigation provides evidence that suggests that JB has anti-amnesic and antioxidant properties. Although the present data suggest that the anti-amnesic property of JB might be related to its antioxidant activity, more studies are necessary to clarify this observation.

The utility and discriminatory pattern of the clock face drawing test in ADHD is unclear. This study therefore compared Clock Face Drawing test performance in children with ADHD and controls. 95 children with ADHD and 191 school children were matched for gender ratio and age. ADHD symptoms severities were assessed using DSM-IV ADHD checklist and their intellectual functioning was assessed. The participants completed three clock-drawing tasks, and the following four functions were assessed: Contour score, Numbers score, Hands setting score, and Center score All the subscales scores of the three clock drawing tests of the ADHD group were lower than that of the control group. In ADHD children, inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity scores were not related with free drawn clock test scores. When pre-drawn contour test was performed, inattentiveness score was statistically associated with Number score. None of the other variables of age, gender, intellectual functioning, and hand use preference were associated with Numbers score. In pre-drawn clock, no association of ADHD symptoms with any CDT subscales was significant. In addition, more errors are observed with free drawn clock and Pre-drawn contour than pre-drawn clock. Putting Numbers and Hands setting are more sensitive measures to screen ADHD than Contour and Center drawing. Test performance, except Hands setting, may have already reached a developmental plateau. It is probable that Hand setting deficit in children with ADHD may not decrease from age 8 to 14 years. Performance of children with ADHD is associated with the complexity of CDT.

MDMA or ecstasy is a derivative of amphetamines used mostly by young people worldwide. Although the acute effects of this drug are known, the effect of chronic administration is not well studied. Therefor the aim of this study was to determine the effects of repeated (long term) administration of MDMA on rats'' memory and their hippocampal cell density. Young adult male Wistar rats 200 ± 20 g served as subjects. The rats were randomly distributed into three MDMA treated groups (3×2.5 mg/kg, 3×5 mg/kg, 3×10 mg/kg) and one control-saline group. All animals received MDMA intraperitoneally (3h apart; a challenge) 7th day of every week for consecutive 4 weeks. Animals were trained before and were tested after injections for their memory status using the standards passive avoidance method. Finally, 24hr after the memory test, rats were sacrificed and after tissue operations, the hippocampal astrocytes and neurons were counted. results showed that the number of neurons in all experimental groups was lower than the control-saline group. The most decreased number of neurons was shown in 5 mg/kg MDMA group compared to control-saline in all the regions of hippocampus. Also we found that repeated administration of MDMA reduced the number of hippocampal astrocytes. It is concluded that repeated administration of MDMA can reduce density of neurons and astrocytes and this decrease is not dose dependence

Many diseases are related to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) hydrodynamics. Therefore, understanding the hydrodynamics of CSF flow and intracranial pressure is helpful for obtaining deeper knowledge of pathological processes and providing better treatments. Furthermore, engineering a reliable computational method is promising approach for fabricating in vitro models which is essential for inventing generic medicines. A Fluid-Solid Interaction (FSI)model was constructed to simulate CSF flow. An important problem in modeling the CSF flow is the diastolic back flow. In this article, using both rigid and flexible conditions for ventricular system allowed us to evaluate the effect of surrounding brain tissue. Our model assumed an elastic wall for the ventricles and a pulsatile CSF input as its boundary conditions. A comparison of the results and the experimental data was done. The flexible model gave better results because it could reproduce the diastolic back flow mentioned in clinical research studies. The previous rigid models have ignored the brain parenchyma interaction with CSF and so had not reported the back flow during the diastolic time. In this computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis, the CSF pressure and flow velocity in different areas were concordant with the experimental data.

In most BCI articles which aim to separate movement imaginations, μ and β frequency bands have been used. In this paper, the effect of presence and absence of γ band on performance improvement is discussed since movement imaginations affect γ frequency band as well. In this study we used data set 2a from BCI Competition IV. In this data set, 9 healthy subjects have performed left hand, right hand, foot and tongue movement imaginations. Time and frequency intervals are computed for each subject and then are classified using Common Spatial Pattern (CSP) as a feature extractor. Finally, data is classified by LDA1, RBF2 MLP3, SVM4and KNN 5 methods. In all experiments, accuracy rate of classification is computed using 4 fold validation method. It is seen that most of the time, combination of μ,β and γ bands would have better performance than just using combination of μ and β bands or γ band alone. In general, the improvement rate of the average classification accuracy is computed 2.91%. In this study, it is shown that using combination of μ, β and γ frequency bands provides more information than only using combination of μ and β in movement imagination separations.

Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis is a rare disease of the nervous system which causes one to lose their feeling of pain. The disease is subtype four of hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy (HSAN IV) that results from NTRK1 gene defect. Direct sequencing was performed to screen NTRK1 for mutations. The result revealed a homozygous deletion of adenine on intron 14 that may cause the disease.

The most popular animal models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are transgenic mice expressing human genes with known mutations which do not represent the most abundant sporadic form of the disease. An increasing number of genetic, vascular and psychosocial data strongly support that the Octodon degus, a moderate-sized and diurnal precocial rodent, provides a naturalistic model for the study of the early neurodegenerative process associated with sporadic AD. In this minireview we describe and analyze the risk factors that contribute to Alzheimer-like characteristics in the degus, following recent publications, and establish some guidelines for future studies in this model of natural aging associated with the disease. Given the heterogeneity of current data derived from the diverse transgenic animal models of AD, now may be the time for the degus to become a strong attractor for academic research labs and companies involved with AD. This may help to understand the mechanisms responsible for the early neurodegenerative process associated with this devastating disease.

A variety of nervous system components such as medulla, pons, midbrain, cerebellum, basal ganglia, parietal, frontal and occipital lobes have role in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) processes. The eye movement is done simultaneously for attracting client''s attention to an external stimulus while concentrating on a certain internal subject. Eye movement guided by therapist is the most common attention stimulus. The role of eye movement has been documented previously in relation with cognitive processing mechanisms. A series of systemic experiments have shown that the eyes’ spontaneous movement is associated with emotional and cognitive changes and results in decreased excitement, flexibility in attention, memory processing, and enhanced semantic recalling. Eye movement also decreases the memory''s image clarity and the accompanying excitement. By using EMDR, we can reach some parts of memory which were inaccessible before and also emotionally intolerable. Various researches emphasize on the effectiveness of EMDR in treating and curing phobias, pains, and dependent personality disorders. Consequently, due to the involvement of multiple neural system components, this palliative method of treatment can also help to rehabilitate the neuro-cognitive system.