Improvement in Erythropoieis-stimulating Agent-induced Pure Red-cell Aplasia by Introduction of Darbepoetin-α When the Anti-erythropoietin Antibody Titer Declines Spontaneously

Anti-erythropoietin antibodies usually cross-react with all kinds of recombinant erythropoietins; therefore, erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA)-induced pure red-cell aplasia (PRCA) is not rescued by different ESAs. Here, we present a case of ESA-induced PRCA in a 36-yr-old woman with chronic kidney disease, whose anemic condition improved following reintroduction of darbepoetin-α. The patient developed progressive, severe anemia after the use of erythropoietin-α. As the anemia did not improve after the administration of either other erythropoietin-α products or erythropoietin-β, all ESAs were discontinued. Oxymetholone therapy failed to improve the transfusion-dependent anemia and a rechallenge with ESAs continuously failed to obtain a sustained response. However, her anemia improved following reintroduction of darbepoetin-α at 3 yr after the initial diagnosis. Interestingly, anti-erythropoietin antibodies were still detectable, although their concentration was too low for titration. In conclusion, darbepoetin-α can improve ESA-induced PRCA when the anti-erythropoietin antibody titer declines and its neutralizing capacity is lost

Optogenetic and chemogenetic approaches for studying astrocytes and gliotransmitters

The brain consists of heterogeneous populations of neuronal and non-neuronal cells. The revelation of their connections and interactions is fundamental to understanding normal brain functions as well as abnormal changes in pathological conditions. Optogenetics and chemogenetics have been developed to allow functional manipulations both in vitro and in vivo to examine causal relationships between cellular changes and functional outcomes. These techniques are based on genetically encoded effector molecules that respond exclusively to exogenous stimuli, such as a certain wavelength of light or a synthetic ligand. Activation of effector molecules provokes diverse intracellular changes, such as an influx or efflux of ions, depolarization or hyperpolarization of membranes, and activation of intracellular signaling cascades. Optogenetics and chemogenetics have been applied mainly to the study of neuronal circuits, but their use in studying non-neuronal cells has been gradually increasing. Here we introduce recent studies that have employed optogenetics and chemogenetics to reveal the function of astrocytes and gliotransmitter. © Experimental Neurobiology 2016.1

On Training Neural Network Decoders of Rate Compatible Polar Codes via Transfer Learning

Neural network decoders (NNDs) for rate-compatible polar codes are studied in this paper. We consider a family of rate-compatible polar codes which are constructed from a single polar coding sequence as defined by 5G new radios. We propose a transfer learning technique for training multiple NNDs of the rate-compatible polar codes utilizing their inclusion property. The trained NND for a low rate code is taken as the initial state of NND training for the next smallest rate code. The proposed method provides quicker training as compared to separate learning of the NNDs according to numerical results. We additionally show that an underfitting problem of NND training due to low model complexity can be solved by transfer learning techniques