Stereological examination of curcumin’s effects on hippocampal damage caused by the anti-epileptic drugs phenobarbital and valproic acid in the developing rat brain

The anti-epileptic drugs phenobarbital and valproic acid have an extremely strong negative effect on cognitive processes such as learning and memory in the developing brain. We examined whether or not curcumin has protective effects on neuronal injury caused by these drugs in the developing rat brain. Young male Wistar rats were studied in two groups, a 7 days old and a 14 days old group (35 rats in each). Both groups were then divided into 7 sub-groups as the control, curcumin, dimethylsulfoxide, phenobarbital, valproic acid, phenobarbital + curcumin, and valproic acid + curcumin groups (n = 5 in each group). At 24 h after the intraperitoneal injection of the compounds, the rats were sacrificed, and the hippocampal tissue was subjected to stereological analysis with the optical fractionation method. Total numbers of neurons in the hippocampus of the 7 days old and 14 days old rats were calculated. It was found that treatment with phenobarbital resulted in a loss of 43% of the neurons, and valproic acid induced a loss of 57% of the neurons in the 7 days old rats. Curcumin prevented this loss significantly with only 19% in the phenobarbital group and 41% in the valproic acid group. In the 14 days old rat groups, phenobarbital was found to reduce the number of neurons by 30%, and valproic acid reduced it by 38%. Curcumin treatment limited neuronal loss to 3% in the phenobarbital + curcumin group and 10% in the valproic acid + curcumin group. These data strongly indicate that curcumin is a protective agent and prevents hippocampal neuronal damage induced by phenobarbital and valproic acid treatment.     

The midterm results of a cohort study of patellofemoral arthroplasty from a non-designer centre using an asymmetric trochlear prosthesis

PurposePatellofemoral arthroplasty (PFA) prosthesis with asymmetric trochlear component was introduced as an improvement from existing designs for surgical treatment of symptomatic isolated patellofemoral arthritis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate midterm results in patients who underwent PFA procedure using such prosthesis.MethodsOur study involved a continuous retrospective cohort of patients who underwent PFA using Journey PFA prosthesis with an asymmetric trochlear component, performed between June 2007 and July 2016 at a non-designer centre. The Patient Reported Outcome Measures and patient satisfaction questionnaires were collected for final evaluation.ResultsA total of 103 PFA performed on 79 patients were evaluated. Median age at the time of surgery was 58 years (range 42 to 78 years); the mean follow-up period was 6 years (range 2 to 11 years). Four knees were revised to Total Knee Arthroplasty for reasons not related to the implant. The cumulative survival estimated by the Kaplan–Meier method was 94.3% (95% confidence interval: 88.4%–100%). There were statistically significant improvements in functional outcome scores.ConclusionThis series of patients who underwent PFA with the asymmetric trochlear component has shown promising mid-term results with no implant-related complications.     

Fructose 1,6-bisphosphate inhibits osteoclastogenesis by attenuating RANKL-induced NF-κB/NFATc-1

Inflammation Research - Although some glycolytic intermediates have been shown to modulate several cell type formation and activation, the functional role of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate (FBP) on...     

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.