1,133 research outputs found
Maintenance of GLUT4 expression in smooth muscle prevents hypertensionâinduced changes in vascular reactivity
Previous studies have shown that expression of GLUT4 is decreased in arterial smooth muscle of hypertensive rats and mice and that total body overexpression of GLUT4 in mice prevents enhanced arterial reactivity in hypertension. To demonstrate that the effect of GLUT4 overexpression on vascular responses is dependent on vascular smooth muscle GLUT4 rather than on some systemic effect we developed and tested smoothâmuscleâspecific GLUT4 transgenic mice (SMG4). When made hypertensive with angiotensin II, both wildâtype and SMG4 mice exhibited similarly increased systolic blood pressure. Responsiveness to phenylephrine, serotonin, and prostaglandin F2α was significantly increased in endotheliumâintact aortic rings from hypertensive wildâtype mice but not in aortae of SMG4 mice. Inhibition of Rhoâkinase equally reduced serotoninâstimulated contractility in aortae of hypertensive wildâtype and SMG4âmice. In addition, acetylcholineâstimulated relaxation was significantly decreased in aortic rings of hypertensive wildâtype mice, but not in rings of SMG4 mice. Inhibition of either prostacylin receptors or cyclooxygenaseâ2 reduced relaxation in rings of hypertensive SMG4 mice. Inhibition of cyclooxygenaseâ2 had no effect on relaxation in rings of hypertensive wildâtype mice. Cyclooxygenaseâ2 protein expression was decreased in hypertensive wildâtype aortae but not in hypertensive SMG4 aortae compared to nonhypertensive controls. Our results demonstrate that smooth muscle expression of GLUT4 exerts a major effect on smooth muscle contractile responses and endotheliumâdependent vasorelaxation and that normal expression of GLUT4 in vascular smooth muscle is required for appropriate smooth muscle and endothelial responses.e12299In the smooth muscle of aortae of hypertensive mice, expression of GLUT4 is decreased. Maintenance of aortic smooth muscle GLUT4 expression prevents hypertensionâmediated changes in vasomotor response. These effects include decreasing/preventing endothelial dysfunction.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110755/1/phy212299.pd
Isolated and Combined Effects of Electroacupuncture and Meditation in Reducing Experimentally Induced Ischemic Pain: A Pilot Study
Acupuncture and meditation are promising treatment options for clinical pain. However, studies investigating the effects of these methods on experimental pain conditions are equivocal. Here, the effects of electroacupuncture (EA) and meditation on the submaximum effort tourniquet technique (SETT), a well-established, opiate-sensitive pain paradigm in experimental placebo research were studied. Ten experienced meditators (6 male subjects) and 13 nonmeditators (6 male subjects) were subjected to SETT (250âmmHG) on one baseline (SETT only) and two treatment days (additional EA contralaterally to the SETT, either at the leg on ST36 and LV3 or at the arm on LI4 and LI10 in randomized order). Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) ratings (scale 0â10) were recorded every 3âmin. During baseline, meditation induced significantly greater pain tolerance in meditators when compared with the control group. Both the EA conditions significantly increased pain tolerance and reduced pain ratings in controls. Furthermore, EA diminished the group difference in pain sensitivity, indicating that meditators had no additional benefit from acupuncture. The data suggest that EA as a presumable bottom-up process may be as effective as meditation in controlling experimental SETT pain. However, no combined effect of both the techniques could be observed
The influence of a series of five dry cupping treatments on pain and mechanical thresholds in patients with chronic non-specific neck pain : a randomised controlled pilot study
In this preliminary trial we investigated the effects of dry cupping, an ancient method for treating pain syndromes, on patients with chronic non-specific neck pain. Sensory mechanical thresholds and the participantsâ self-reported outcome measures of pain and quality of life were evaluated.
Fifty patients (50.5 ± 11.9 years) were randomised to a treatment group (TG) or a waiting-list control group (WL). Patients in the TG received a series of 5 cupping treatments over a period of 2 weeks; the control group did not. Self-reported outcome measures before and after the cupping series included the following: Pain at
rest (PR) and maximal pain related to movement (PM) on a 100-mm visual analogue scale (VAS), pain diary (PD) data on a 0-10 numeric rating scale (NRS), Neck Disability Index (NDI), and health-related quality of life (SF-36). In
addition, the mechanical-detection thresholds (MDT), vibration-detection thresholds (VDT), and pressure-pain thresholds (PPT) were determined at pain-related and control areas.
Patients of the TG had significantly less pain after cupping therapy than patients of the WL group (PR: Î-22.5 mm, p = 0.00002; PM: Î-17.8 mm, p = 0.01). Pain diaries (PD) revealed that neck pain decreased gradually in the TG patients and that pain reported by the two groups differed significantly after the fifth cupping session
(Î-1.1, p = 0.001). There were also significant differences in the SF-36 subscales for bodily pain (Î13.8, p = 0.006) and vitality (Î10.2, p = 0.006). Group differences in PPT were significant at pain-related and control areas (all p < 0.05), but were not significant for MDT or VDT.
A series of five dry cupping treatments appeared to be effective in relieving chronic non-specific
neck pain. Not only subjective measures improved, but also mechanical pain sensitivity differed significantly between the two groups, suggesting that cupping has an influence on functional pain processing
A computational method for designing diverse linear epitopes including citrullinated peptides with desired binding affinities to intravenous immunoglobulin
Computationally-Optimized Bone Mechanical Modeling from High-Resolution Structural Images
Image-based mechanical modeling of the complex micro-structure of human bone has shown promise as a non-invasive method for characterizing bone strength and fracture risk in vivo. In particular, elastic moduli obtained from image-derived micro-finite element (ÎŒFE) simulations have been shown to correlate well with results obtained by mechanical testing of cadaveric bone. However, most existing large-scale finite-element simulation programs require significant computing resources, which hamper their use in common laboratory and clinical environments. In this work, we theoretically derive and computationally evaluate the resources needed to perform such simulations (in terms of computer memory and computation time), which are dependent on the number of finite elements in the image-derived bone model. A detailed description of our approach is provided, which is specifically optimized for ÎŒFE modeling of the complex three-dimensional architecture of trabecular bone. Our implementation includes domain decomposition for parallel computing, a novel stopping criterion, and a system for speeding up convergence by pre-iterating on coarser grids. The performance of the system is demonstrated on a dual quad-core Xeon 3.16 GHz CPUs equipped with 40 GB of RAM. Models of distal tibia derived from 3D in-vivo MR images in a patient comprising 200,000 elements required less than 30 seconds to converge (and 40 MB RAM). To illustrate the system's potential for large-scale ÎŒFE simulations, axial stiffness was estimated from high-resolution micro-CT images of a voxel array of 90 million elements comprising the human proximal femur in seven hours CPU time. In conclusion, the system described should enable image-based finite-element bone simulations in practical computation times on high-end desktop computers with applications to laboratory studies and clinical imaging
The spotted gar genome illuminates vertebrate evolution and facilitates human-teleost comparisons
To connect human biology to fish biomedical models, we sequenced the genome of spotted gar (Lepisosteus oculatus), whose lineage diverged from teleosts before teleost genome duplication (TGD). The slowly evolving gar genome has conserved in content and size many entire chromosomes from bony vertebrate ancestors. Gar bridges teleosts to tetrapods by illuminating the evolution of immunity, mineralization and development (mediated, for example, by Hox, ParaHox and microRNA genes). Numerous conserved noncoding elements (CNEs; often cis regulatory) undetectable in direct human-teleost comparisons become apparent using gar: functional studies uncovered conserved roles for such cryptic CNEs, facilitating annotation of sequences identified in human genome-wide association studies. Transcriptomic analyses showed that the sums of expression domains and expression levels for duplicated teleost genes often approximate the patterns and levels of expression for gar genes, consistent with subfunctionalization. The gar genome provides a resource for understanding evolution after genome duplication, the origin of vertebrate genomes and the function of human regulatory sequences
Alignment of the CMS tracker with LHC and cosmic ray data
© CERN 2014 for the benefit of the CMS collaboration, published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License by IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab srl. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation and DOI.The central component of the CMS detector is the largest silicon tracker ever built. The precise alignment of this complex device is a formidable challenge, and only achievable with a significant extension of the technologies routinely used for tracking detectors in the past. This article describes the full-scale alignment procedure as it is used during LHC operations. Among the specific features of the method are the simultaneous determination of up to 200 000 alignment parameters with tracks, the measurement of individual sensor curvature parameters, the control of systematic misalignment effects, and the implementation of the whole procedure in a multi-processor environment for high execution speed. Overall, the achieved statistical accuracy on the module alignment is found to be significantly better than 10Όm
Integrative oncology for breast cancer patients: introduction of an expert-based model
Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in protonâproton collisions at âs = 7 TeV
Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript â1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio
Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon
The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local landâatmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe
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