Low-level laser therapy for spinal cord injury in rats: effects of polarization

Abstract. The effects of laser polarization on the efficacy of near-infrared low-level laser therapy for spinal cord injury (SCI) are presented. Rat spinal cords were injured with a weight-drop device, and the lesion sites were directly irradiated with a linearly polarized 808-nm diode laser positioned either perpendicular or parallel to the spine immediately after the injury and daily for five consecutive days. Functional recovery was assessed daily by an open-field test. Regardless of the polarization direction, functional scores of SCI rats that were treated with the 808-nm laser irradiation were significantly higher than those of SCI alone group (Group 1) from day 5 after injury. The locomotive function of SCI rats irradiated parallel to the spinal column (Group 3) was significantly improved from day 10 after injury, compared to SCI rats treated with the linear polarization perpendicular to the spinal column (Group 2). There were no significant differences in ATP contents in the injured tissue among the three groups. We speculate that the higher efficacy with parallel irradiation is attributable to the deeper light penetration into tissue with anisotropic scattering

Short-term clinicopathological outcome of neoadjuvant chemohormonal therapy comprising complete androgen blockade, followed by treatment with docetaxel and estramustine phosphate before radical prostatectomy in Japanese patients with high-risk localized prostate cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To assess the outcome of neoadjuvant chemohormonal therapy comprising complete androgen blockade followed by treatment with docetaxel and estramustine phosphate before radical prostatectomy in Japanese patients with a high risk of localized prostate cancer (PCa).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Complete androgen blockade followed by 6 cycles of docetaxel (30 mg/m²) with estramustine phosphate (560 mg) were given to 18 PCa patients before radical prostatectomy. Subsequently, the clinical and pathological outcomes were analyzed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No patients had severe adverse events during chemohormonal therapy, and hence they were treated with radical prostatectomy. Two patients (11.1%) achieved pathological complete response. Surgical margins were negative in all patients. At a median follow-up of 18 months, 14 patients (77.8%) were disease-free without PSA recurrence. All 4 patients with PSA recurrence had pathologic T3b or T4 disease and 3 of these 4 patients had pathologic N1 disease.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We found that neoadjuvant chemohormonal therapy with complete androgen blockade followed by treatment with docetaxel and estramustine phosphate before radical prostatectomy was safe, feasible, and associated with favorable pathological outcomes in patients with a high risk of localized PCa.</p

Identifying the Recurrence Patterns of Nonvolcanic Tremors Using a 2‐D Hidden Markov Model With Extra Zeros

Nonvolcanic tremor activity has been observed in many places worldwide. In some regions, their activity was observed to accompany slow slip events. Before examining whether and how nonvolcanic tremor activity is related to slow slip, it is essential to understand quantitatively the spatiotemporal migration patterns of nonvolcanic tremors. We developed a 2‐D hidden Markov model to automatically analyze and forecast the spatiotemporal behavior of tremor activity in the regions Kii and Shikoku, southwest Japan. This new automated procedure classifies the tremor source regions into distinct segments in 2‐D space and infers a clear hierarchical structure of tremor activity, where each region consists of several subsystems and each subsystem contains several segments. The segments can be quantitatively categorized into three different types according to their occurrence patterns: episodic, weak concentration, and background, extending earlier knowledge gained from handpicked tremor swarms. The Kii region can be categorized into four different subsystems, with two often linked to each other. The Shikoku region can be divided into six subsystems, with two in central Shikoku linked to each other. Moreover, a significant increase in the proportion of tremor occurrence was detected in a segment in southwest Shikoku before the 2003 and 2010 long‐term slow slip events in the Bungo channel. This highlights the possible correlation between nonvolcanic tremor and slow slip events. The model can be used to analyze tremor data from other regions.Peer Reviewe

Two Loci Contribute to Age-Related Hearing Loss Resistance in the Japanese Wild-Derived Inbred MSM/Ms Mice

Yasuda S.P., Miyasaka Y., Hou X., et al. Two Loci Contribute to Age-Related Hearing Loss Resistance in the Japanese Wild-Derived Inbred MSM/Ms Mice. Biomedicines 10, 2221 (2022); https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10092221.An MSM/Ms strain was established using Japanese wild mice, which exhibit resistance to several phenotypes associated with aging, such as obesity, inflammation, and tumorigenesis, compared to common inbred mouse strains. MSM/Ms strain is resistant to age-related hearing loss, and their auditory abilities are sustained for long durations. The age-related hearing loss 3 (ahl3) locus contributes to age-related hearing in MSM/Ms strain. We generated ahl3 congenic strains by transferring a genomic region on chromosome 17 from MSM/Ms mice into C57BL/6J mice. Although C57BL/6J mice develop age-related hearing loss because of the ahl allele of the cadherin 23 gene, the development of middle- to high-frequency hearing loss was significantly delayed in an ahl3 congenic strain. Moreover, the novel age-related hearing loss 10 (ahl10) locus associated with age-related hearing resistance in MSM/Ms strain was mapped to chromosome 12. Although the resistance effects in ahl10 congenic strain were slightly weaker than those in ahl3 congenic strain, slow progression of age-related hearing loss was confirmed in ahl10 congenic strain despite harboring the ahl allele of cadherin 23. These results suggest that causative genes and polymorphisms of the ahl3 and ahl10 loci are important targets for the prevention and treatment of age-related hearing loss