Minocycline Synergizes with N-Acetylcysteine and Improves Cognition and Memory Following Traumatic Brain Injury in Rats

Background: There are no drugs presently available to treat traumatic brain injury (TBI). A variety of single drugs have failed clinical trials suggesting a role for drug combinations. Drug combinations acting synergistically often provide the greatest combination of potency and safety. The drugs examined (minocycline (MINO), N-acetylcysteine (NAC), simvastatin, cyclosporine A, and progesterone) had FDA-approval for uses other than TBI and limited brain injury in experimental TBI models. Methodology/Principal Findings: Drugs were dosed one hour after injury using the controlled cortical impact (CCI) TBI model in adult rats. One week later, drugs were tested for efficacy and drug combinations tested for synergy on a hierarchy of behavioral tests that included active place avoidance testing. As monotherapy, only MINO improved acquisition of the massed version of active place avoidance that required memory lasting less than two hours. MINO-treated animals, however, were impaired during the spaced version of the same avoidance task that required 24-hour memory retention. Coadministration of NAC with MINO synergistically improved spaced learning. Examination of brain histology 2 weeks after injury suggested that MINO plus NAC preserved white, but not grey matter, since lesion volume was unaffected, yet myelin loss was attenuated. When dosed 3 hours before injury, MINO plus NAC as single drugs had no effect on interleukin-1 formation; together they synergistically lowered interleukin-1 levels. This effect on interleukin-1 was not observed when th

Dynamic Grouping of Hippocampal Neural Activity During Cognitive Control of Two Spatial Frames

Hippocampal neurons represent two concurrent streams of spatial information by transiently organizing into subpopulations of coactive neurons and can reflect the most behaviorally relevant information at any given time

Augmented Reality for the assessment of children's spatial memory in real settings

Short-term memory can be defined as the capacity for holding a small amount of information in mind in an active state for a short period of time. There are no available, specific, and adapted instruments to study the development of memory and spatial orientation in people while they are moving. In this paper, we present the ARSM (Augmented Reality Spatial Memory) task, the first Augmented Reality task that involves a user's movement to assess spatial short-term memory in healthy children. The experimental procedure of the ARSM task was designed to assess the children s skill to retain visuospatial information. They were individually asked to remember the real place where augmented reality objects were located. The children (N=76) were divided into two groups: preschool (5-6 year olds) and primary school (7-8 year olds). We found a significant improvement in ARSM task performance in the older group. The correlations between scores for the ARSM task and traditional procedures were significant. These traditional procedures were the Dot Matrix subtest for the assessment of visuospatial short-term memory of the computerized AWMA-2 battery and a parent s questionnaire about a child s everyday spatial memory. Hence, we suggest that the ARSM task has high verisimilitude with spatial short-term memory skills in real life. In addition, we evaluated the ARSM task s usability and perceived satisfaction. The study revealed that the younger children were more satisfied with the ARSM task. This novel instrument could be useful in detecting visuospatial short-term difficulties that affect school academic achievementFunded by the Spanish Government (MINECO) and European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) in the CHILDMNEMOS project TIN2012-37381-C02-01, Gobierno de Aragon (Dpt. Industria e Innovacion), Fondo Social Europeo, Fundacion Universitaria Antonio Gargallo and Obra Social Ibercaja. 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Modelização de agroecossistemas como ferramenta de comunicação em ambientes de montanha no Brasil e na Argentina

O presente artigo avalia metodologia de modelização como instrumento comunicativo para trabalhar de forma sistêmica a percepção de agricultores familiares sobre as potencialidades e fragilidades, ecológica e produtiva, de seus agroecossistemas, fundamentado na análise de sistemas de produção de base agroecológica e convencional desenvolvidos em ambientes de montanha. Parte-se de caracterização geral do contexto ambiental e produtivo local para, em seguida, com base em levantamento participativo com famílias agricultoras, estabelecer a modelização de quatro agroecossistemas, sendo dois no Brasil e dois na Argentina. A modelização possibilitou analisar o contexto socioprodutivo das famílias agricultoras em ambientes montanos nos dois países, a partir dos fluxos econômicos e ecológicos em seus agroecossistemas, identificando oportunidades e restrições, em suas unidades de produção, para a inserção de práticas agroecológicas associadas às estratégias de reprodução econômica, construídas historicamente no contexto sociocultural local, tendo por base análise das relações entre as variáveis determinantes para as decisões estratégicas adotadas. A metodologia de análise de agroecossistemas representa instrumento importante para diálogos, pesquisas e ações para o desenvolvimento rural sustentável de regiões de montanha e contribui com subsídios para políticas públicas, bem como para a elaboração e implantação de projetos sociais e ambientais com foco na agroecologia e agricultura familiar