Differences in neuroplasticity after spinal cord injury in varying animal models and humans

Rats have been the primary model to study the process and underlying mechanisms of recovery after spinal cord injury. Two weeks after a severe spinal cord contusion, rats can regain weight-bearing abilities without therapeutic interventions, as assessed by the Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan locomotor scale. However, many human patients suffer from permanent loss of motor function following spinal cord injury. While rats are the most understood animal model, major differences in sensorimotor pathways between quadrupeds and bipeds need to be considered. Understanding the major differences between the sensorimotor pathways of rats, non-human primates, and humans is a start to improving targets for treatments of human spinal cord injury. This review will discuss the neuroplasticity of the brain and spinal cord after spinal cord injury in rats, non-human primates, and humans. A brief overview of emerging interventions to induce plasticity in humans with spinal cord injury will also be discussed

Blocking human fear memory with the matrix metalloproteinase inhibitor doxycycline

Learning to predict threat is a fundamental ability of many biological organisms, and a laboratory model for anxiety disorders. Interfering with such memories in humans would be of high clinical relevance. On the basis of studies in cell cultures and slice preparations, it is hypothesised that synaptic remodelling required for threat learning involves the extracellular enzyme matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 9. However, in vivo evidence for this proposal is lacking. Here we investigate human Pavlovian fear conditioning under the blood-brain barrier crossing MMP inhibitor doxycyline in a pre-registered, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. We find that recall of threat memory, measured with fear-potentiated startle 7 days after acquisition, is attenuated by ~60% in individuals who were under doxycycline during acquisition. This threat memory impairment is also reflected in increased behavioural surprise signals to the conditioned stimulus during subsequent re-learning, and already late during initial acquisition. Our findings support an emerging view that extracellular signalling pathways are crucially required for threat memory formation. Furthermore, they suggest novel pharmacological methods for primary prevention and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 4 April 2017; doi:10.1038/mp.2017.65

Identification of the dynamics equations of a DC motor

W artykule przedstawiono możliwości zastosowania bazowych funkcji sklejanych służących identyfikacji równań silnika elektrycznego. Do opisu przebiegów zastosowano bazowe funkcje sklejane stopnia trzeciego.The paper presents possibilities of using base splice functions to identify equations of a DC engine. Third degree base splice functions were used to describe the distributions

Critical Behavior near the Ferromagnetic to Paramagnetic Phase Transition in Y₈Co₆₂B₃₀ Amorphous Alloy

The Y₈Co₆₂B₃₀ amorphous alloy is a collinear ferromagnet. The Arrott plot, the Kouvel-Fisher method, critical isotherm analysis and magnetic field dependence of maximum magnetic entropy changes were the main analytical tools used to determine the nature of the ferromagnetic/paramagnetic phase transition. Values of critical exponents (β, γ, and δ) were calculated and were convergent with those characteristic for mean-field model. It suggests that long range ferromagnetic interactions are playing main role in investigated alloy and the phase transition was confirmed to be of a second order according to the Banerjee criterion

Nanocrystallization of the Amorphous Fe14\text{}_{14}Ni40\text{}_{40}Zr7\text{}_{7}B12\text{}_{12} Alloys Studied by the Mössbauer Spectroscopy

Formation of the soft magnetic nanostructure in amorphous Fe$\text{}_{41}$Ni$\text{}_{40}$Zr$\text{}_{7}$B$\text{}_{12}$ alloy due to heat treatment is studied by the Mössbauer, differential scanning calorimetry, and X-ray diffraction techniques. Annealing at temperatures 520-580ºC leads to the formation of extremely soft nanocrystalline alloy as revealed by the rf-Mössbauer measurements. The superparamagnetic behaviour was observed for the alloy annealed at 620-640ºC. At higher annealing temperatures good soft magnetic properties deteriorate

Dietary attitudes of adults in relation to functional food depending on the age and sex

Określono postawy osób dorosłych wobec żywności funkcjonalnej w zależności od wieku i płci. Badania przeprowadzono wśród 935 osób w wieku 20 - 70 lat. Przeważająca część respondentów kupowała żywność funkcjonalną i jednocześnie uznała jej cenę za wysoką, a ofertę za umiarkowaną. Wraz z wiekiem zwiększał się odsetek osób zwracających uwagę na zawartość tłuszczu w kupowanym mleku i mięsie, a także na rodzaj kwasów tłuszczowych w nabywanych produktach. Ponadto istotnie więcej kobiet niż mężczyzn brało pod uwagę zawartość i rodzaj składników w kupowanych produktach.The aim of this study was to determine the influence of the age and sex on dietary attitudes towards functional food. The research was carried out on the group of 935 people at the age range from 20 to 70. The majority of the respondents bought functional food, at the same time considering its price as high and the offer as rather poor. Along with the increasing age of the respondents the number of people who paid attention to the fat content in the milk and meat as well as to the kind of fatty acids in the products increased. Furthermore, considerably more women than men took into consideration the content and the components of the products they bought