Behavioral and biochemical characterization of elevated “I-maze” as animal model of anxiety

AbstractThe elevated I-maze is a modification of the elevated plus-maze model of anxiety in mice. The design of I-maze comprises a straight wooden passage, resembling the English letter “I,” divided equally into three areas; two enclosed areas (close arms) at both ends of the “maze” and an open area in the center of two enclosed areas. The I-maze completely avoids the central platform of elevated plus-maze, removing any ambiguity in time spent on central platform and allowing uninterrupted animal exploration. In this model, diazepam (1 mg/kg) and gabapentin (10 mg/kg) significantly increased the percentage of time spent in the open areas (%TO) and the number of unprotected head dips (uHDIPS), and reduced the number of protected head dips (pHDIPS) and stretch attend postures (SAP) from close to open arm. Similarly, fluoxetine (5 mg/kg) significantly increased %TO and uHDIPS, and significantly decreased SAP from close to open arm, but it did not have any significant effect on pHDIPS. The 5-HT3 receptor antagonist, ondansetron (0.1 mg/kg), did not produce any significant change in all the behaviors, observed, as compared to vehicle-treated control mice. On the other hand, the anxiogenic agent, caffeine (15 mg/kg), did produce a significant decrease in %TO and uHDIPS, and significantly increased pHDIPS and SAP from close to open arm. Mice confined in open area of I-maze bring the relevant biochemical changes associated with anxiety behavior, showing significant increase in the levels of plasma nitrate and plasma corticosterone. These data indicate that a combination of novel design of elevated I-maze and a detailed behavioral analysis provides a sensitive model for the measurement of anxiety

An Efficient NVM based Architecture for Intermittent Computing under Energy Constraints

Battery-less technology evolved to replace battery technology. Non-volatile memory (NVM) based processors were explored to store the program state during a power failure. The energy stored in a capacitor is used for a backup during a power failure. Since the size of a capacitor is fixed and limited, the available energy in a capacitor is also limited and fixed. Thus, the capacitor energy is insufficient to store the entire program state during frequent power failures. This paper proposes an architecture that assures safe backup of volatile contents during a power failure under energy constraints. Using a proposed dirty block table (DBT) and writeback queue (WBQ), this work limits the number of dirty blocks in the L1 cache at any given time. We further conducted a set of experiments by varying the parameter sizes to help the user make appropriate design decisions concerning their energy requirements. The proposed architecture decreases energy consumption by 17.56%, the number of writes to NVM by 18.97% at LLC, and 10.66% at a main-memory level compared to baseline architecture

Efficient Placement and Migration Policies for an STT-RAM based Hybrid L1 Cache for Intermittently Powered Systems

The number of battery-powered devices is rapidly increasing due to the widespread use of IoT-enabled nodes in various fields. Energy harvesters, which help to power embedded devices, are a feasible alternative to replacing battery-powered devices. In a capacitor, the energy harvester stores enough energy to power up the embedded device and compute the task. This type of computation is referred to as intermittent computing. Energy harvesters are unable to supply continuous power to embedded devices. All registers and cache in conventional processors are volatile. We require a Non-Volatile Memory (NVM)-based Non-Volatile Processor (NVP) that can store registers and cache contents during a power failure. NVM-based caches reduce system performance and consume more energy than SRAM-based caches. This paper proposes Efficient Placement and Migration policies for hybrid cache architecture that uses SRAM and STT-RAM at the first level cache. The proposed architecture includes cache block placement and migration policies to reduce the number of writes to STT-RAM. During a power failure, the backup strategy identifies and migrates the critical blocks from SRAM to STT-RAM. When compared to the baseline architecture, the proposed architecture reduces STT-RAM writes from 63.35% to 35.93%, resulting in a 32.85% performance gain and a 23.42% reduction in energy consumption. Our backup strategy reduces backup time by 34.46% when compared to the baseline

ATTENUATION OF ANTINOCICEPTIVE EFFECT OF MORPHINE IN DIABETIC MICE: NITRIC OXIDE OR INTERLEUKIN-2

Objective: The present study was designed to explore the mechanistic role of interleukin-2 in diabetes-induced decrease in the antinociceptive effect of morphine in mice. Role of interleukin-2 was investigated by employing cyclosporin, a interleukin-2 synthesis inhibitor. Methods: Diabetes was induced in mice by single intra peritoneal injection of Streptozotocin (200 mg/kg, i. p.). Nociceptive threshold in diabetic mice was measured by Rodent tail-flick test. Nitrite levels in the urine of mice were estimated by employing Greiss reagent. Results: A significant decrease in antinociceptive effect of morphine was observed in mice. Administration of cyclosporin (20 mg/kg, s. c., b. d.) in diabetic mice significantly increased antinociceptive effect of morphine in diabetic mice. However, administration of cyclosporin (20 mg/kg, s. c., b. d.) failed to significantly change the increased nitrite levels in diabetic mice.Conclusion: The present study indicates that interleukin-2 may be responsible for decrease in antinociceptive effect of cyclosporine. The study also indicates that the increase in levels of interleukin-2 is independent of an increase in nitrite levels. It may, therefore, be concluded that nitric oxide has no role in nociceptive changes made by interekin-2 in diabetic mice. Â

Prevalence of clinical remission in patients with sporadic idiopathic hypoparathyroidism

Background: Remission of disease activity is a characteristic feature of autoimmune endocrine disorders such as Graves' disease, Addison's disease and occasionally in patients with premature ovarian failure. Autoimmunity is also implicated in sporadic idiopathic hypoparathyroidism (SIH) with clinical remission of disease reported in three cases. Objective: To assess the rate of remission in patients with sporadic idiopathic hypoparathyroidism and review the cases reported so far. Subjects and methods: Subjects included 53 patients (M:F, 24:29) with SIH who had been symptomatic for at least 1 year (range 1-31 years). They were treated with calcium and 1-α -(OH)D3/cholecalciferol therapy and had a mean duration of follow up of 5.0 ± 3.2 years. Treatment was withdrawn in two stages in the patients who maintained normal levels of serum total calcium during the preceding year of treatment. In stage-1, the dose of therapy was reduced to half and subsequently all treatment was stopped (stage 2) in those patients who maintained normal serum total calcium levels on the reduced dose. Remission of SIH was defined as maintenance of normal serum total (≥ 2.12 mmol/l) and ionized calcium, inorganic phosphorus and serum intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH) for at least 3 months after withdrawal of calcium and 1-α -(OH)D3/cholecalciferol therapy. Calcium sensing receptor autoantibodies (CaSRAb) were determined by Western blot. Results: Two of the 53 patients (3.8%) with SIH stayed in remission for 1 year after complete withdrawal of therapy. CaSRAb was absent in both the cases. The clinical features, age at onset and duration of hypocalcaemic symptoms in cases with remission were comparable to those who did no show remission. Conclusion: Sporadic idiopathic hypoparathyroidism is not irreversible as is widely believed and spontaneous remission of disease may occur in 3.8% of patients

Linkages between oral commensal bacteria and atherosclerotic plaques in coronary artery disease patients

Coronary artery disease is an inflammatory disorder characterized by narrowing of coronary arteries due to atherosclerotic plaque formation. To date, the accumulated epidemiological evidence supports an association between oral bacterial diseases and coronary artery disease, but has failed to prove a causal link between the two. Due to the recent surge in microbial identification and analyses techniques, a number of bacteria have been independently found in atherosclerotic plaque samples from coronary artery disease patients. In this study, we present meta-analysis from published studies that have independently investigated the presence of bacteria within atherosclerotic plaque samples in coronary artery disease patients. Data were collated from 63 studies covering 1791 patients spread over a decade. Our analysis confirms the presence of 23 oral commensal bacteria, either individually or in co-existence, within atherosclerotic plaques in patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy, catheter-based atherectomy, or similar procedures. Of these 23 bacteria, 5 (Campylobacter rectus, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Porphyromonas endodontalis, Prevotella intermedia, Prevotella nigrescens) are unique to coronary plaques, while the other 18 are additionally present in non-cardiac organs, and associate with over 30 non-cardiac disorders. We have cataloged the wide spectrum of proteins secreted by above atherosclerotic plaque-associated bacteria, and discuss their possible roles during microbial migration via the bloodstream. We also highlight the prevalence of specific poly-microbial communities within atherosclerotic plaques. This work provides a resource whose immediate implication is the necessity to systematically catalog landscapes of atherosclerotic plaque-associated oral commensal bacteria in human patient populations

Predicting vapor liquid equilibria using density functional theory: a case study of argon

Predicting vapor liquid equilibria (VLE) of molecules governed by weak van der Waals (vdW) interactions using the first principles approach is a significant challenge. Due to the poor scaling of the post Hartree-Fock wave function theory with system size/basis functions, the Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) is preferred for systems with a large number of molecules. However, traditional DFT cannot adequately account for medium to long range correlations which are necessary for modeling vdW interactions. Recent developments in DFT such as dispersion corrected models and nonlocal van der Waals functionals have attempted to address this weakness with a varying degree of success. In this work, we predict the VLE of argon and assess the performance of several density functionals and the second order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) by determining critical and structural properties via first principles Monte Carlo simulations. PBE-D3, BLYP-D3, and rVV10 functionals were used to compute vapor liquid coexistence curves, while PBE0-D3, M06-2X-D3, and MP2 were used for computing liquid density at a single state point. The performance of the PBE-D3 functional for VLE is superior to other functionals (BLYP-D3 and rVV10). At T = 85 K and P = 1 bar, MP2 performs well for the density and structural features of the first solvation shell in the liquid phase

North South Asymmetry of Different Solar Activity Features During Solar Cycle 23

A study on North South (NS) asymmetry of different solar activity features (DSAF) such as solar proton events, solar active prominences, H alpha flare index, soft X ray flares, monthly mean sunspot area and monthly mean sunspot number were carried out from 1996 to 2008. It is found in our result that solar cycle 23 is magnetically weak compared to solar cycle 22. Study shows the Southern dominance of DSAF during the time period of study. During the rising phase of the cycle the numbers of DSAF approximately equal on the North and South Hemisphere. However, these activities tend to shift from Northern Hemisphere to Southern Hemisphere in between year 1998 to 1999. The statistical significance of the asymmetry time series using a chi square test of goodness of fit indicates that in most of the cases the asymmetry is highly significant, i.e., the asymmetry is a real feature in the NS distribution of DSAF.Comment: In this manuscript total 19 pages including 7 figures and 3 table