Existential Neuroscience: A Functional magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Neural Responses to reminders of one's mortality.

A considerable body of evidence derived from terror management theory indicates that the awareness of mortality represents a potent psychological threat engendering various forms of psychological defense. However, extant research has yet to examine the neurological correlates of cognitions about one's inevitable death. The present study thus investigated in 17 male participants patterns of neural activation elicited by mortality threat. To induce mortality threat, participants answered questions arranged in trial blocks that referred to fear of death and dying. In the control condition participants answered questions about fear of dental pain. Neural responses to mortality threat were greater than to pain threat in right amygdala, left rostral anterior cingulate cortex, and right caudate nucleus. We discuss implications of these findings for stimulating further research into the neurological correlates of managing existential fear

Hemorrhage in mouse tumors induced by dodecaborate cluster lipids intended for boron neutron capture therapy

Tanja Schaffran,1 Nan Jiang,1 Markus Bergmann,2,3 Ekkehard Küstermann,4 Regine Süss,5 Rolf Schubert,5 Franz M Wagner,6 Doaa Awad,7 Detlef Gabel1,2,8 1Department of Chemistry, University of Bremen, 2Institute of Neuropathology, Klinikum Bremen-Mitte; 3Cooperative Center Medicine, University of Bremen, 4“In-vivo-MR” AG, FB2, University of Bremen, Bremen, 5Pharmaceutical Technology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, 6Forschungsneutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II), Technische Unversitaet Muenchen, Garching, Germany; 7Department of Biochemistry, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt; 8School of Engineering and Science, Jacobs University Bremen, Bremen, Germany Abstract: The potential of boron-containing lipids with three different structures, which were intended for use in boron neutron capture therapy, was investigated. All three types of boron lipids contained the anionic dodecaborate cluster as the headgroup. Their effects on two different tumor models in mice following intravenous injection were tested; for this, liposomes with boron lipid, distearoyl phosphatidylcholine, and cholesterol as helper lipids, and containing a polyethylene glycol lipid for steric protection, were administered intravenously into tumor-bearing mice (C3H mice for SCCVII squamous cell carcinoma and BALB/c mice for CT26/WT colon carcinoma). With the exception of one lipid (B-THF-14), the lipids were well tolerated, and no other animal was lost due to systemic toxicity. The lipid which led to death was not found to be much more toxic in cell culture than the other boron lipids. All of the lipids that were well tolerated showed hemorrhage in both tumor models within a few hours after administration. The hemorrhage could be seen by in vivo magnetic resonance and histology, and was found to occur within a few hours. The degree of hemorrhage depended on the amount of boron administered and on the tumor model. The observed unwanted effect of the lipids precludes their use in boron neutron capture therapy. Keywords: liposomes, histology, magnetic resonance imaging, pharmacodynamic

Stem cells for the treatment of stroke: malignant transformation of homologous transplants

Copyright 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelber

Efficient stem cell labeling for MRI studies

Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Stem cell implantation in ischemic mouse heart: a high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging investigation

© 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. All rights reserved

Host-dependent tumorigenesis of embryonic stem cell transplantation in experimental stroke

© 2003 The International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolis