Effect of the Presence of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Val66Met Polymorphism on the Recovery in Patients With Acute Subcortical Stroke

Objective : To investigate the effect of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Valmet polymorphism on the recovery after subcortical stroke, using the modified Rankin Scale (mRS). Methods : Subcortical stroke patients with copies of BDNF Valmet polymorphism (n=7) were compared to their controls (n=7) without a copy of BDNF Valmet polymorphism after matching for initial severity, location and type of stroke. The mRS scores at 1 and 3 months after discharge from the neurorehabilitation unit were compared between the groups. Results : A repeated measures ANOVA for mRS revealed significant interaction between time and group (F(2, 24) =37.2, p<0.001) and a significant effect of time (F(2, 24)=10.8, p<0.001), thereby reflecting significant differences between the Met allele (+) group and the Met allele (-) group. There was a significant difference in mRS scores at 3 months post-discharge between the two groups (p=0.01) although no difference was evident in mRS scores at 1 month post-discharge between the two groups. There were significant improvements between mRS scores on admission and mRS scores at 1 month post-discharge (p=0.02), and between mRS scores at 1 month post-discharge and mRS scores at 3 months post-discharge (p=0.004) in the Met allele (-) group. Conclusion : BDNF Valmet polymorphism may be associated with worse functional outcome in Korean patients with subcortical stroke. Therefore, BDNF Valmet polymorphism should be considered as an important prognostic factor for recovery and responses to rehabilitation therapies after stroke in Korean patients. There is a need for developing different rehabilitation strategies for the population with BDNF Valmet polymorphism. Further studies assessing different outcomes for various functional domains of stroke recovery are needed to clarify the role of BDNF Valmet polymorphism.This research was supported by SK Chemicals Co. through Seoul National University R&DB Foundation (Grant No. 800-2010095).OAIID:oai:osos.snu.ac.kr:snu2013-01/102/0000005165/4SEQ:4PERF_CD:SNU2013-01EVAL_ITEM_CD:102USER_ID:0000005165ADJUST_YN:YEMP_ID:A075663DEPT_CD:801CITE_RATE:0FILENAME:첨부된 내역이 없습니다.DEPT_NM:의학과EMAIL:[email protected]:

Severity of Post-stroke Aphasia According to Aphasia Type and Lesion Location in Koreans

To determine the relations between post-stroke aphasia severity and aphasia type and lesion location, a retrospective review was undertaken using the medical records of 97 Korean patients, treated within 90 days of onset, for aphasia caused by unilateral left hemispheric stroke. Types of aphasia were classified according to the validated Korean version of the Western Aphasia Battery (K-WAB), and severities of aphasia were quantified using WAB Aphasia Quotients (AQ). Lesion locations were classified as cortical or subcortical, and were determined by magnetic resonance imaging. Two-step cluster analysis was performed using AQ values to classify aphasia severity by aphasia type and lesion location. Cluster analysis resulted in four severity clusters: 1) mild; anomic type, 2) moderate; Wernicke's, transcortical motor, transcortical sensory, conduction, and mixed transcortical types, 3) moderately severe; Broca's aphasia, and 4) severe; global aphasia, and also in three lesion location clusters: 1) mild; subcortical 2) moderate; cortical lesions involving Broca's and/or Wernicke's areas, and 3) severe; insular and cortical lesions not in Broca's or Wernicke's areas. These results revealed that within 3 months of stroke, global aphasia was the more severely affected type and cortical lesions were more likely to affect language function than subcortical lesions

A Validation Study of the Korean Version of SPAN

Purpose: The SPAN, which is acronym standing for its four components: Startle, Physiological arousal, Anger, and Numbness, is a short post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) screening scale. This study sought to develop and validate a Korean version of the SPAN (SPAN-K). Materials and Methods: Ninety-three PTSD patients (PTSD group), 73 patients with non-psychotic psychiatric disorders (psychiatric control group), and 88 healthy participants (normal control group) were recruited for this study. Participants completed a variety of psychiatric assessments including the SPAN-K, the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS), the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Results: Cronbach&#39;s alpha and test-retest reliability values for the SPAN-K were both 0.80. Mean SPAN-K scores were 10.06 for the PTSD group, 4.94 for the psychiatric control group, and 1.42 for the normal control group. With respect to concurrent validity, correlation coefficients were 0.87 for SPAN-K vs. CAPS total scores (p&lt;0.001) and 0.86 for SPAN-K vs. DTS scores (p&lt;0.001). Additionally, correlation coefficients were 0.31 and 0.42 for SPAN-K vs. STAI-S and STAI-T, respectively. Receiver operating characteristic analysis of SPAN-K showed good diagnostic accuracy with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.87. The SPAN-K showed the highest efficiency at a cutoff score of 7, with a sensitivity of 0.83, a specificity of 0.81, positive predictive value (PPV) of 0.88, and negative predictive value (NPV) of 0.73. Conclusion: These results suggest that the SPAN-K had good psychometric properties and may be a useful instrument for rapid screening of PTSD patients.This study was supported by a grant of the Korean Academy of Anxiety Disorders, Korean Neuropsychiatric Association, and Korean Research Foundation (2006-2005152), Republic of Korea

Analysis of the dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase gene sequences in Plasmodium vivax field isolates that failed chloroquine treatment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To use pyrimethamine as an alternative anti-malarial drug for chloroquine-resistant malaria parasites, it was necessary to determine the enzyme's genetic variation in dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate syntase (DHFR-TS) among Korean strains.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Genetic variation of <it>dhfr-ts </it>genes of <it>Plasmodium vivax </it>clinical isolates from patients who did not respond to drug treatment (<it>n </it>= 11) in Korea were analysed. The genes were amplified using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with genomic DNA as a template.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Sequence analysis showed that the open reading frame (ORF) of 1,857 nucleotides encoded a deduced protein of 618 amino acids (aa). Alignment with the DHFR-TS genes of other malaria parasites showed that a 231-residue DHFR domain and a 286-residue TS domain were seperated by a 101-aa linker region. This ORF shows 98.7% homology with the <it>P. vivax </it>Sal I strain (XM001615032) in the DHFR domain, 100% in the linker region and 99% in the TS domain. Comparison of the DHFR sequences from pyrimethamine-sensitive and pyrimethamine-resistant <it>P. vivax </it>isolates revealed that nine isolates belonged to the sensitive strain, whereas two isolates met the criteria for resistance. In these two isolates, the amino acid at position 117 is changed from serine to asparagine (S117N). Additionally, all Korean isolates showed a deletion mutant of THGGDN in short tandem repetitive sequences between 88 and 106 amino acid.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results suggest that sequence variations in the DHFR-TS represent the prevalence of antifolate-resistant <it>P. vivax </it>in Korea. Two of 11 isolates have the Ser to Asn mutation in codon 117, which is the major determinant of pyrimethamine resistance in <it>P. vivax</it>. Therefore, the introduction of pyrimethamine for the treatment of chloroquine-resistant vivax malaria as alternative drug in Korea should be seriously considered.</p

Open-label study comparing the efficacy and tolerability of aripiprazole and haloperidol in the treatment of pediatric tic disorders

Due to its unique pharmacodynamic properties of dopamine partial agonist activity, and its association with few and mild side effects, aripiprazole is a candidate atypical antipsychotic for patients with tic disorders. This open-label study compared the efficacy and tolerability of aripiprazole with haloperidol, a typical antipsychotic widely used to treat patients with tic disorders. Forty-eight children and adolescents with tic disorders were recruited from the outpatient clinic at South Korea and treated with aripiprazole (initial dose, 5.0 mg/d; maximum dose 20 mg/d) or haloperidol (initial dose, 0.75 mg/d; maximum dose, 4.5 mg/d) for 8 weeks. Treatment efficacy was measured using the yale global tic severity scale (YGTSS), and tolerability was measured using the extrapyramidal symptom rating scale (ESRS) and an adverse effects checklist. Total tic scores as measured by the YGTSS decreased over time in both groups (p < 0.001) without any significant differences between groups. ESRS scores were significantly higher in the haloperidol group during the 4 weeks after commencement of medication (p < 0.05). These results indicate that aripiprazole may be a promising drug in the treatment of children and adolescents with tic disorders. Further controlled studies are needed to determine the efficacy and tolerability of aripiprazole in these patients

25th annual computational neuroscience meeting: CNS-2016

The same neuron may play different functional roles in the neural circuits to which it belongs. For example, neurons in the Tritonia pedal ganglia may participate in variable phases of the swim motor rhythms [1]. While such neuronal functional variability is likely to play a major role the delivery of the functionality of neural systems, it is difficult to study it in most nervous systems. We work on the pyloric rhythm network of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG) [2]. Typically network models of the STG treat neurons of the same functional type as a single model neuron (e.g. PD neurons), assuming the same conductance parameters for these neurons and implying their synchronous firing [3, 4]. However, simultaneous recording of PD neurons shows differences between the timings of spikes of these neurons. This may indicate functional variability of these neurons. Here we modelled separately the two PD neurons of the STG in a multi-neuron model of the pyloric network. Our neuron models comply with known correlations between conductance parameters of ionic currents. Our results reproduce the experimental finding of increasing spike time distance between spikes originating from the two model PD neurons during their synchronised burst phase. The PD neuron with the larger calcium conductance generates its spikes before the other PD neuron. Larger potassium conductance values in the follower neuron imply longer delays between spikes, see Fig. 17.Neuromodulators change the conductance parameters of neurons and maintain the ratios of these parameters [5]. Our results show that such changes may shift the individual contribution of two PD neurons to the PD-phase of the pyloric rhythm altering their functionality within this rhythm. Our work paves the way towards an accessible experimental and computational framework for the analysis of the mechanisms and impact of functional variability of neurons within the neural circuits to which they belong

Forecasting Obsolescence of Components by Using a Clustering-Based Hybrid Machine-Learning Algorithm

Product obsolescence occurs in every production line in the industry as better-performance or cost-effective products become available. A proactive strategy for obsolescence allows firms to prepare for such events and reduces the manufacturing loss, which eventually leads to positive customer satisfaction. We propose a machine learning-based algorithm to forecast the obsolescence date of electronic diodes, which has a limitation on the amount of data available. The proposed algorithm overcomes these limitations in two ways. First, an unsupervised clustering algorithm is applied to group the data based on their similarity and build independent machine-learning models specialized for each group. Second, a hybrid method including several reliable techniques is constructed to improve the prediction accuracy and overcome the limitation of the lack of data. It is empirically confirmed that the prediction accuracy of the obsolescence date for the electrical component data is improved through the proposed clustering-based hybrid method

Graphene as an Interfacial Layer for Improving Cycling Performance of Si Nanowires in Lithium-Ion Batteries

Managing interfacial instability is crucial for enhancing cyclability in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), yet little attention has been devoted to this issue until recently. Here, we introduce graphene as an interfacial layer between the current collector and the anode composed of Si nanowires (SiNWs) to improve the cycling capability of LIBs. The atomically thin graphene lessened the stress accumulated by volumetric mismatch and inhibited interfacial reactions that would accelerate the fatigue of Si anodes. By simply incorporating graphene at the interface, we demonstrated significantly enhanced cycling stability for SiNW-based LIB anodes, with retentions of more than 2400 mAh/g specific charge capacity over 200 cycles, 2.7 times that of SiNWs on a bare current collector.close0

The Application of REDOR NMR to Understand the Conformation of Epothilone B

The structural information of small therapeutic compounds complexed in biological matrices is important for drug developments. However, structural studies on ligands bound to such a large and dynamic system as microtubules are still challenging. This article reports an application of the solid-state NMR technique to investigating the bioactive conformation of epothilone B, a microtubule stabilizing agent, whose analog ixabepilone was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an anticancer drug. First, an analog of epothilone B was designed and successfully synthesized with deuterium and fluorine labels while keeping the high potency of the drug; Second, a lyophilization protocol was developed to enhance the low sensitivity of solid-state NMR; Third, molecular dynamics information of microtubule-bound epothilone B was revealed by high-resolution NMR spectra in comparison to the non-bound epothilone B; Last, information for the macrolide conformation of microtubule-bound epothilone B was obtained from rotational-echo double-resonance (REDOR) NMR data, suggesting the X-ray crystal structure of the ligand in the P450epoK complex as a possible candidate for the conformation. Our results are important as the first demonstration of using REDOR for studying epothilones