Neprilysin inhibition for pulmonary arterial hypertension: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, proof-of-concept trial

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Hobbs AJ, Moyes AJ, Baliga RS, et al. Neprilysin inhibition for pulmonary arterial hypertension: a randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, proof‐of‐concept trial. Br J Pharmacol. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.14621, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.14621. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived VersionsThis work was supported by a British Heart Foundation Project Grant (PG/11/88/28992) and the National Institutes for Health Research, Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre award to UC

Involvement of the Glycogen Synthase Kinase-3 Signaling Pathway in TBI Pathology and Neurocognitive Outcome

BACKGROUND: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) sets in motion cascades of biochemical changes that result in delayed cell death and altered neuronal architecture. Studies have demonstrated that inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) effectively reduces apoptosis following a number of stimuli. The Wnt family of proteins, and growth factors are two major factors that regulate GSK-3 activity. In the absence of stimuli, GSK-3 is constitutively active and is complexed with Axin, adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), and casein kinase Iα (CK1α) and phosphorylates ß-Catenin leading to its degradation. Binding of Wnt to Frizzled receptors causes the translocation of GSK-3 to the plasma membrane, where it phosphorylates and inactivates the Frizzled co-receptor lipoprotein-related protein 6 (LRP6). Furthermore, the translocation of GSK-3 reduces ß-Catenin phosphorylation and degradation, leading to ß-Catenin accumulation and gene expression. Growth factors activate Akt, which in turn inhibits GSK-3 activity by direct phosphorylation, leading to a reduction in apoptosis. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using a rodent model, we found that TBI caused a rapid, but transient, increase in LRP6 phosphorylation that is followed by a modest decrease in ß-Catenin phosphorylation. Phospho-GSK-3β immunoreactivity was found to increase three days post injury, a time point at which increased Akt activity following TBI has been observed. Lithium influences several neurochemical cascades, including inhibiting GSK-3. When the efficacy of daily lithium was assessed, reduced hippocampal neuronal cell loss and learning and memory improvements were observed. These influences were partially mimicked by administration of the GSK-3-selective inhibitor SB-216763, as this drug resulted in improved motor function, but only a modest improvement in memory retention and no overt neuroprotection. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Taken together, our findings suggest that selective inhibition of GSK-3 may offer partial cognitive improvement. As a broad spectrum inhibitor of GSK-3, lithium offers neuroprotection and robust cognitive improvement, supporting its clinical testing as a treatment for TBI

Treatment of myofascial trigger points in common shoulder disorders by physical therapy: A randomized controlled trial [ISRCTN75722066]

Contains fulltext : 52454.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein Regulates Proliferation and Differentiation of Adult Neural Stem/Progenitor Cells

Fragile X syndrome (FXS), the most common form of inherited mental retardation, is caused by the loss of functional fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP). FMRP is an RNA–binding protein that can regulate the translation of specific mRNAs. Adult neurogenesis, a process considered important for neuroplasticity and memory, is regulated at multiple molecular levels. In this study, we investigated whether Fmrp deficiency affects adult neurogenesis. We show that in a mouse model of fragile X syndrome, adult neurogenesis is indeed altered. The loss of Fmrp increases the proliferation and alters the fate specification of adult neural progenitor/stem cells (aNPCs). We demonstrate that Fmrp regulates the protein expression of several components critical for aNPC function, including CDK4 and GSK3β. Dysregulation of GSK3β led to reduced Wnt signaling pathway activity, which altered the expression of neurogenin1 and the fate specification of aNPCs. These data unveil a novel regulatory role for Fmrp and translational regulation in adult neurogenesis

Real‐time deep artifact suppression using recurrent U‐Nets for low‐latency cardiac MRI

PURPOSE: Real-time low latency MRI is performed to guide various cardiac interventions. Real-time acquisitions often require iterative image reconstruction strategies, which lead to long reconstruction times. In this study, we aim to reconstruct highly undersampled radial real-time data with low latency using deep learning. METHODS: A 2D U-Net with convolutional long short-term memory layers is proposed to exploit spatial and preceding temporal information to reconstruct highly accelerated tiny golden radial data with low latency. The network was trained using a dataset of breath-hold CINE data (including 770 time series from 7 different orientations). Synthetic paired data were created by retrospectively undersampling the magnitude images, and the network was trained to recover the target images. In the spirit of interventional imaging, the network was trained and tested for varying acceleration rates and orientations. Data were prospectively acquired and reconstructed in real time in 1 healthy subject interactively and in 3 patients who underwent catheterization. Images were visually compared to sliding window and compressed sensing reconstructions and a conventional Cartesian real-time sequence. RESULTS: The proposed network generalized well to different acceleration rates and unseen orientations for all considered metrics in simulated data (less than 4% reduction in structural similarity index compared to similar acceleration and orientation-specific networks). The proposed reconstruction was demonstrated interactively, successfully depicting catheters in vivo with low latency (39 ms, including 19 ms for deep artifact suppression) and an image quality comparing favorably to other reconstructions. CONCLUSION: Deep artifact suppression was successfully demonstrated in the time-critical application of non-Cartesian real-time interventional cardiac MR