Role of Anterior Cingulate Cortex in Saccade Control

Cognitive control is referred to the guidance of behavior based on internal goals rather than external stimuli. It has been postulated that prefrontal cortex is mainly involved in higher order cognitive functions. Specifically, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is part of the prefrontal cortex, is suggested to be involved in performance monitoring and conflict monitoring that are considered to be cognitive control functions. Saccades are the fast eye movements that align the fovea on the objects of interest in the environment. In this thesis, I have explored the role of ACC in control of saccadic eye movements. First, I performed a resting-state fMRI study to identify areas within the ACC that are functionally connected to the frontal eye fields (FEF). It has been shown that FEF is involved in saccade generation. Therefore, the ACC areas that are functionally connected to FEF could be hypothesized to have a role in saccade control. Then, I performed simultaneous electrophysiological recordings in the ACC and FEF. Furthermore, I explored whether ACC exerts control over FEF. My results show that ACC is involved in cognitive control of saccades. Furthermore, the ACC and FEF neurons communicate through synchronized theta and beta band activity in these areas. The results of this thesis shine light on the mechanisms by which these brain areas communicate. Moreover, my findings support the notion that ACC and FEF have a unique oscillatory property, and more specifically ACC has a prominent theta band, and to a lesser extent beta band activity

Development of Clay Nanoparticles Toward Bio and Medical Applications

Clay nanoparticles are among the most applicable and cost-affordable materials, all of which have a variety of applications in case of medical science. In this chapter, key characteristics of the clay nanoparticles along with their major groups, structure, morphology, and physicochemical properties were evaluated. Thereafter, the applications of clay nanoparticles in the field of nanocomposite, polymeric matrices, and medicine were investigated, while specimen production procedures were also reviewed. The main focus of this chapter is to investigate the applications of clay nanoparticles in bio- and medical science. In fact, organically modified clay nanoparticles (organoclays) are an attractive class of hybrid organic–inorganic nanomaterials with potential applications in case of polymer nanocomposites, rheological properties modification, and drug delivery carrier

Development of Efficient Composites via Renewable, Recyclable, and Degradable Additives

Rapid development of composite industries raised the demand for tough, effective, practical, and sustainable composites with enhanced mechanical, electrical, thermal, and physical properties. However, several major problems such as high production cost and nonrecyclability and nondegradability of fillers and composites limited their selectivity and approaches toward their aims. Herein, our aim is to present and review the recent achievements in matter of reinforced composites with renewable, recyclable, or degradable additives toward development of composites through a mass-scale production strategy with least charges, high efficiency, and fine mechanical, thermal, and physical properties. Additionally, such aim can reduce the overall amount of nondegradable pollutions such as plastics in the nature and decline overall the charges of composite industries by reusing such materials and decreasing their demand for raw material. Last but not least, to clean up the nature from industrial wastes, green strategies should be developed to whether reuse such material or degrade them via practical strategies

Bilateral sequential theta burst stimulation for multiple-therapy-resistant depression: A naturalistic observation study

Depression is a significant health issue with treatment resistance reported in about one third of patients. Treatment resistance results in significant disability, impaired quality of life, and increased healthcare costs. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a treatment option for treatment resistant depression (TRD) with response and remission rates in open-label studies being as high as 58% and 37% respectively. Theta-burst is a faster and novel rTMS paradigm that has shown promise as a treatment for TRD in some preliminary studies. In a naturalistic design, we evaluated the response, remission and tolerability of bilateral sequential (right then left) prefrontal theta-burst rTMS (bsTBS) in 50 patients with TRD (600 pulses/session, 20 sessions, 100% of resting motor threshold (80% if intolerant to 100%, n = 2), F4/F3 of 10-20-20 EEG localization). Data was collected over 36 months from a specialized academic TMS clinic. Patients had multiple-treatment resistance with at least two failed trials of different antidepressants with 20% also having failed electroconvulsive therapy and 66% having received professional therapy. We found a 28% remission rate (HAMD-17 score of ≤7) and a 52% response rate (≥50% reduction in HAMD-17) with a 42% reduction in average HAMD-17 score. The treatment was well tolerated, with muscle contractions, mild pain or discomfort, headache, scalp irritation, and changes to vitals being captured as occasional adverse events with two instances of syncope (0.22% of treatments). This naturalistic study shows that bsTBS is a promising paradigm for a multiple-TRD patient population with approximately one-third of treatments achieving remission and over half achieving significant response

Inflammation and Immune Evasion Coexist in Treponema Pallidum-infected Skin

Syphilis is a systemic, multistage, sexually transmitted infection caused by the highly invasive spirochetal bacterium, Treponema pallidum, subspecies pallidum. In the United States, the annual rate of primary and secondary syphilis (SS) between 2002 and 2016 has increased from 2.1 to 8.7 cases per 100,000.1 Gestational and congenital syphilis cases have also increased in the last few years. There is no evidence of a change in T pallidum susceptibility to penicillin as an explanation for the significant increase in the number of syphilis cases in the United States. It is more likely that changes in risk-taking behavior in the general population are responsible for this change. Although syphilis is easily treatable with penicillin, if left untreated up to one-third of syphilitic patients will go on to have the typical complications associated with tertiary syphilis. It is therefore critically important for clinicians to be well versed in the classic and not so classic dermatologic manifestations of the disease

Wide unroofed coronary sinus and cryptogenic stroke: a case report.

Background : Unroofed coronary sinus (UCS) is a rare congenital cardiac anomaly in which there is complete or partial absence of the roof of the coronary sinus (CS) resulting in a communication between the right and left atria. There are four types of UCS described in the literature. While usually asymptomatic and discovered incidentally on imaging, UCS can be the source of a brain abscess or paradoxical embolism. Case summary : A 62-year-old gentleman presented to the emergency department with sudden onset of right-sided weakness and subsequent unresponsiveness. His brain computed tomography (CT) was consistent with left-sided stroke. Transthoracic echocardiography was remarkable for a dilated CS and an agitated saline study was suggestive of an UCS. A gated cardiac CT with coronary angiography confirmed a wide communication between the CS and left atrium. Right heart catheterization did not show evidence of left to right shunt. He had no abnormal rhythm on telemetry monitoring throughout his hospital stay. Discussion : Unroofed coronary sinus is the least prevalent form of an atrial septal defect. Unroofed coronary sinus is usually asymptomatic and is diagnosed incidentally in imaging studies, however, it should be suspected in patients with cerebral emboli or evidence of left to right shunt with unexplained arterial desaturation. Transthoracic echocardiography is the most widely used imaging modality for the diagnosis of UCS but is limited in its ability to visualize the posterior cardiac structures such as the CS and pulmonary veins. Gated cardiac CT is a great diagnostic tool for UCS

Latent Thermal Energy Storage Technologies and Applications: A Review

The achievement of European climate energy objectives which are contained in the European Union's (EU) “20-20-20” targets and in the European Commission's (EC) Energy Roadmap 2050 is possible, among other things, through the use of energy storage technologies. The use of thermal energy storage (TES) in the energy system allows to conserving energy, increase the overall efficiency of the systems by eliminating differences between supply and demand for energy. The article presents different methods of thermal energy storage including sensible heat storage, latent heat storage and thermochemical energy storage, focusing mainly on phase change materials (PCMs) as a form of suitable solution for energy utilisation to fill the gap between demand and supply to improve the energy efficiency of a system . PCMs allow the storage of latent thermal energy during phase change at almost stable temperature. The article presents a classification of PCMs according to their chemical nature as organic, inorganic and eutectic and by the phase transition with their advantages and disadvantages. In addition, different methods of improving the effectiveness of the PCM materials such as employing cascaded latent heat thermal energy storage system, encapsulation of PCMs and shape-stabilisation are presented in the paper. Furthermore, the use of PCM materials in buildings, power generation, food industry and automotive applications are presented and the modelling tools for analysing the functionality of PCMs materials are compared and classified

A Study on the Development of Vision Theory in Scientists’ Works in Eslamic Era

تمدن اسلامي ـ ایرانی، نه تنها ارثية يونان را از انهدام و فراموشي نجات داد و آن را اسلوب و نظم بخشيد و به اروپا داد، بلكه پايه‌گذار بسیاری از علوم گرديد که البته آن نیز مدیون ترجمه هایی بود که توسط دانشمندانی چون حنین بن اسحق و ابن ماسویه و دیگران انجام شد. یکی از شاخه های این علوم، فرایند بینایی است که افتخار بسط و توجیه علمی و سپس تکامل آن از آنِ دانشمندان دورۀ اسلامی، بالاخص ابن هیثم است. دانش بينايی و چشم پزشكی در ميان روميان و يونانيان چندان پيشرفته نبود. دانشمندان دورۀ اسلامی آن‌چه را كه اين دو ملت در اين زمينه می‌دانستند، گرفتند و به صورتی محدود، ولی موفقيت‌آميز تكميل كردند. همچنین یکی دیگر از مباحث مطرح در آثار دورۀ اسلامی محوریت دوربینی و نزدیک‌بینی است که به زعم ایشان، عاملی به نام «روح باصره» توسط مجرای توخالی (عصب مجوّف) خلف چشم به دِماغ (مغز) رسیده و از آنجا دوباره به چشم بازمی‌گشت. چهار عامل اصلی بود که سبب دوربینی و نزدیک‌بینی می‌شد: غلظت بیش از حدّ روح باصره، لطافت و صافی بیش از حدّ آن، کم شدن و سپس زیاد شدن آن... . در این مقاله سعی شده تا با نگاهی به پیدایش فرایند بینایی و طرح آن به صورت ابتدایی در آثار اطبای یونانی و سیر تکامل آن در آثار دورۀ اسلامی، به ارزش کار دانشمندانی چون ابن هیثم پرداخته شود. همچنین عامل بینایی در دوربینی و نزدیک بینی نیز از جمله مباحثی است که به طور علمی اوّل بار در آثار دورۀ اسلامی مطرح و دنبال شده است.Islamic-Iranian culture which not only save the legacy of Greece from extinction and brought order brought order to it and transformed it to Europe, but made the bases of many sciences which are owned to translations conduced by scientists such as Hanin Ibn Eshagh and Ibn Masouyeh. One of the fields of these sciences is the process of vision whose honor of development and completeness is for scientists in Islamic era especially Ibn Heisam. Knowledge, art of vision and ophthalmology were not so developed among the Roman and the Greek. Scientists of Islamic era took what they know in this regard and completed it in a limited framework but successfully. Also, one of the other discussions in the works of Islamic era was the focus on far sightedness and near sightedness which, the scientists believed, was a phenomenon entitled “the watching soul” and it went to the center of brain by a hollow neuron and came back again. Four basic factors caused far sightedness and near sightedness: The excess density of the watching soul, its excessive clarity, its decrease and increase. The author of the present article tried to have a look at the process of vision and to present it in a preliminary way in the works of Greek physicians and the process of its development in the works of Islamic era, intends to deal with the works of some scientists such as Ibn Heisam. Also, the feature of vision in far sightedness and near sightedness is among the discussions which was posed in Islamic era for the first time

Involvement of opioidergic system of the ventral hippocampus, the nucleus accumbens or the central amygdala in anxiety-related behavior

In the present study, the influence of opioidergic system of the ventral hippocampus, the nucleus accumbens or the central amygdala on anxiety-related behaviour was investigated in rats. As a model of anxiety, the elevated plus maze which is a useful test to investigate the effects of anxiogenic or anxiolytic drugs in rodents was used. Bilateral microinjection of different doses of morphine (2.5, 5 and 7.5 μg/rat) into the ventral hippocampus or the nucleus accumbens increased the percentage of open arm time (OAT) and open arm entries (OAE) but not locomotor activity, indicating an anxiolytic response. However, intra-central amygdala administration of the opioid did not show any response. On the other hand, microinjection of a dose of naloxone into the ventral hippocampus (2 μg/rat) or the nucleus accumbens (1 μg/rat) increased open arm time (OAT), but not open arm entry (OAE) which may indicate an anxiolytic effect. Pre-treatment administration of naloxone (0.5, 1 and 2 μg/rat) reversed the anxiolytic effect of morphine (7.5 μg/rat) injected into the ventral hippocampus in a dose-dependent manner. A dose of the antagonist (1 μg/rat) also reduced the morphine response (2.5 μg/rat) when injected in the nucleus accumbens. In conclusion, it seems that the opioidergic system in the ventral hippocampus and the nucleus accumbens are involved in anxiety-related behaviors and the ventral hippocampus may be the main site of action of the anxiolytic properties of morphine. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved