Neonatal Proinflammatory Stress and Deficit of Induction of Long-Term Potentiation in the Hippocampus in Rats: Gender Differences

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology - The characteristics of long-term potentiation (LTP) in field CA1 of living hippocampal slices from rats aged 17–33 days were studied after neonatal...     

Efficacy of Botulinum Therapy in Correcting the Level of Pain Syndrome and Quality of Life in Patients with Cervical Dystonia

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology - Objectives. To assess the severity of pain syndrome, emotional status, and quantitative levels of humoral serotonin in patients with cervical dystonia (CD)...     

Association of Chronotype,Road Traffic Accidents,and Polymorphisms in Genes Linked with the Biological Clock and the Dopaminergic System

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology - Objective. To study the association between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of the RORA (rs1159814), CLOCK (rs12649507), PER3 (rs2640909), NPSR1...     

Use of Anchoring Motifs to Support the Central and Peripheral Locations of Opsins in Optogenetics

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology - One version of the optogenetic prosthetization of the degenerative retina is an approach based on creation of an ON/OFF receptive field for ganglion neurons...     

Learning with Reinforcement: the Role of Immediate Feedback and the Internal Model of the Situation

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology - Human behavior in conditions of partial indeterminacy of the outcome is characterized by correspondence between the frequency of actions and the probability...     

Comparative Characteristics of the Expression of Inducible NO Synthase in the Hippocampus of Humans and Experimental Animals

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology - Objective: To study the characteristics of the expression of inducible NO synthase (iNOS) in hippocampal fields CA1 and CA3 in adult male humans and adult...     

Dexamethasone turns tumor antigen-presenting cells into tolerogenic dendritic cells with T cell inhibitory functions

BackgroundDendritic cells (DCs) are usually immunogenic, but they are also capable of inducing tolerance under anti-inflammatory conditions. Immunotherapy based on autologous DCs loaded with an allogeneic melanoma cell lysate (TRIMEL/DCs) induces immunological responses and increases melanoma patient survival. Glucocorticoids can suppress DC maturation and function, leading to a DC-mediated inhibition of T cell responses.MethodsThe effect of dexamethasone, a glucocorticoid extensively used in cancer therapies, on TRIMEL/DCs phenotype and immunogenicity was examined.ResultsDexamethasone induced a semi-mature phenotype on TRIMEL/DC with low maturation surface marker expressions, decreased pro-inflammatory cytokine induction (IL-1β and IL-12) and increased release of regulatory cytokines (IL-10 and TGF-β). Dexamethasone-treated TRIMEL/DCs inhibited allogeneic CD4⁺ T cell proliferation and cytokine release (IFNγ, TNF-α and IL-17). Co-culturing melanoma-specific memory tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes with dexamethasone-treated TRIMEL/DC inhibited proliferation and effector T cell activities, including cytokine secretion and anti-melanoma cytotoxicity.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that dexamethasone repressed melanoma cell lysate-mediated DC maturation, generating a potent tolerogenic-like DC phenotype that inhibited melanoma-specific effector T cell activities. These results suggest that dexamethasone-induced immunosuppression may interfere with the clinical efficacy of DC-based melanoma vaccines, and must be taken into account for optimal design of cellular therapy against cancer.     

Cecal coccidiosis in turkeys: Comparative biology of Eimeria species in the lower intestinal tract of turkeys using genetically typed,single oocyst–derived lines

Parasitology Research - Differentiating the Eimeria species causing cecal coccidiosis in turkeys is challenging. To obtain benchmark biological data for Eimeria gallopavonis Hawkins 1952 and...     

Eucalyptol-based green extraction of brown alga Zonaria tournefortii

A green extraction method, based on the use of 1,8-cineole (eucalyptol) as biosolvent, has been developed to prepare crude extracts from the brown alga Zonaria tournefortii characterized by chemical composition, particularly dominated by phenolic compounds derived from phloroglucinol. The main advantage of the developed technique are the recovery of eucalyptol, based on multistep liquid-liquid extraction with distilled water, followed by centrifugation and elimination of the aqueous phase, and the complete recycling of biosolvent by steam distillation. A comparative study between the proposed green extract and the conventional extract, prepared by solvent maceration using the mixture CH₂Cl₂/MeOH (1/1:v/v), was performed in terms of qualitative and quantitative determination of several parameters as:(i) the total phenolic content determined by the Folin-Ciocalteu assay, (ii) the presence of phenols determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and (iii) the antioxidant activity assessed by the DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging assay. In short, eucalyptol provides a safe and selective extraction of phenolic compounds from Zonaria tournefortii with no environmental side effects and a good recovery of the solvent.     

Comparing the spatial attractiveness of hospitals using zero-inflated spatial models

Policy makers increasingly rely on hospital competition to incentivize patients to choose high-value care. Amongst all possible drivers, the travel distance without any doubt is one of the most important. In this paper we propose the use of a spatial Bayesian hierarchical model to assess the impact of distance on the number of patient admissions in hospitals, and thereby, compare hospital attractiveness. To this aim a MCMC sampler has been designed. We apply our methodology to patient admissions for asthma in four hospitals located in the Hérault department of France. Results indicate that the most attractive hospital is the CHU Montpellier.