Detection of active human herpesvirus-6 infection in the brain: correlation with polymerase chain reaction detection in cerebrospinal fluid

One-half of bone-marrow transplant (BMT) and stem-cell transplant recipients have reactivation of latent human herpesvirus (HHV)-6 2-4 weeks after transplant. Although the detection of viral DNA, RNA, and antigen in brain material confirmed active HHV-6 variant B infection, peak viral loads in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum occurred 2-4 weeks before death and decreased to low levels before or at autopsy. All autopsy samples consistently demonstrated HHV-6 active infection in the hippocampus. Astrocytic cells positive for viral antigen provided support for an HHV-6-specific tropism for hippocampal astrocytes. HHV-6 DNA in CSF and serum may not reflect the level of active viral infection in the brain after BMT.     

A spatio-temporal wavelet-chaos methodology for EEG-based diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease

A spatio-temporal wavelet-chaos methodology is presented for analysis of EEGs and their delta, theta, alpha, and beta sub-bands for discovering potential markers of abnormality in Alzheimer's disease (AD). The non-linear dynamics of the EEG and EEG sub-bands are quantified in the form of the correlation dimension (CD), representing system complexity, and the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE), representing system chaoticity. The methodology is applied to two groups of EEGs: healthy subjects and AD patients. The eyes open and eyes closed conditions are investigated to evaluate the effect of visual input and attention. EEGs from different loci in the brain are investigated to discover areas of the brain responsible for or affected by changes in CD and LLE. It is found that the wavelet-chaos methodology and the sub-band analysis developed in this research accurately characterizes the non-linear dynamics of non-stationary EEG-like signals with respect to the EEG complexity and chaoticity. It is concluded that changes in the brain dynamics are not spread out equally across the spectrum of the EEG and over the entire brain, but are localized to certain frequency bands and electrode loci. New potential markers of abnormality were discovered in this research for both eyes open and closed conditions.     

Haplotypes in the 5′‐untranslated region of the CYP1A2gene are inversely associated with lung cancer risk but do not correlate with caffeine metabolism

In this study, we analyzed the influence of CYP1A2 genetic variation and enzyme activity on lung cancer risk in a high‐incidence area. A total of 95 lung cancer patients and 196 controls were genotyped for the ?3860G/A, ?3113A/G, ?2467T/delT, ?739T/G, and ?163C/A polymorphisms in the 5′‐untranslated region of the gene. In addition, a subset of 70 patients and 115 controls were phenotyped by high‐performance liquid chromatography determination of the caffeine metabolic ratio (CMR). The ?2467T/delT polymorphism and the CYP1A2*1V haplotype (‐163C>A, ?2467T>delT) were inversely associated with lung cancer risk (odds ratio [OR] = 0.47 [0.2–0.9]; P = 0.02 and OR = 0.13 [0.02‐1.0]; P = 0.04; respectively). In addition, the CYP*1A/*1V and *1F (‐163C>A)/*1D (?163C>A, ?2467T>delT) diplotypes were absent in the patients group, whereas accounting for 7.1% (P = 0.017) and 5.6% (P = 0.037) of controls, respectively. Mean CMR was significantly higher in patients than in controls (10.50 ± 17.31 vs. 6.52 ± 6.26, P = 0.01) but regression analyses did not yield significant ORs for the association with lung cancer risk. Similarly, no significant correlations were found between any genetic variant and enzyme activity. Several CYP1A2 haplotypes and diplotypes containing the ?2467delT variant were associated with lower lung cancer risk; however, they did not correlate with significant changes in CYP1A2 metabolic activity toward caffeine. Environ. Mol. Mutagen., 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Onset and Frequency of Spasticity After First Ever Stroke

Background

Spasticity is one of the most important causes of disability after stroke. In spite of high incidence of spasticity, little is known about the relationship between the occurrence and the development of spasticity. This study aimed to determine risk-factors of post stroke spasticity.

Activation of mitochondrial KATP channels mediates neuroprotection induced by chronic morphine preconditioning in hippocampal CA-1 neurons following cerebral ischemia

Purpose

Pharmacologic preconditioning, through activating several mechanisms and mediators, can increase the tolerance of different tissues against ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. Recent studies have shown that morphine preconditioning has protective effects in different organs, especially in the heart. Nevertheless, its mechanisms are not well elucidated in the brain. The present study aimed to clarify whether the activation of mitochondrial KATP (mKATP) channels in chronic morphine (CM) preconditioning could decrease hippocampus damage following I/R injury.

Decreased expression of lncRNA loc285194 as an independent prognostic marker in cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BackgroundSeveral studies have indicated that lncRNA loc285194 is aberrantly expressed in many types of cancer. This meta-analysis was performed to elucidate the potential role of lncRNA loc285194 as a prognostic marker in malignant tumors.MethodsAn electronic search of PubMed, Medline, Embase, and Web of Science was performed to identify all eligible papers related to the prognostic impact of lncRNA loc285194 expression in cancer. Hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were extracted from the included studies to explore the association between lncRNA loc285194 expression and patient overall and disease-free survival (OS & DFS). The odds ratios (ORs) were also calculated to assess the association between lncRNA loc285194 expression and clinicopathological parameters.ResultsA total of 14 eligible articles with 1215 patients were included in this meta-analysis. Meta-results revealed that low expression of lncRNA loc285194 was significantly correlated with poorer overall survival (OS; HR = 2.34; 95% CI, 1.78–3.06; P < 0.001) and disease-free survival (DFS; HR = 2.66; 95% CI, 1.95–3.64; P = 0.001) rates in cancer patients. Low lncRNA loc285194 expression was also found to be significantly associated with lymph node metastasis (LNM; OR = 2.17; 95% CI, 1.23–3.83; P = 0.007), and distant metastasis (DM; OR = 2.49; 95% CI, 1.26–4.91; P = 0.009).ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that decreased level of lncRNA loc285194 was associated with poor clinical outcomes for patients with different types of cancer, supporting a promising potential biomarker for prognosis and metastasis in human cancers.     

A case report of prostate adenocarcinoma with leptomeningeal carcinomatosis and intracerebral metastasis

Despite the fact that prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer in men, metastases to the central nervous system including leptomeningeal involvement by prostate carcinoma is a rare event. The prognosis of metastatic prostate cancer is very poor due to lack of CNS penetrating therapeutic agents.