Dietary vitamin E decreases doxorubicin-induced oxidative stress without preventing mitochondrial dysfunction

Abstract Doxorubicin (DOX) is a widely prescribed antineoplastic and although the precise mechanism(s) have yet to be identified, DOX-induced oxidative stress to mitochondrial membranes is implicated in the pathogenic process. Previous attempts to protect against DOX-induced cardiotoxicity with a-tocopherol (vitamin E) have met with limited success possibly as a result of inadequate delivery to relevant subcellular targets such as mitochondrial membranes. The present investigation was designed to assess whether enrichment of cardiac membranes with a-ocopherol is sufficient to protect against DOX-induced mitochondrial cardiotoxicity. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats received seven weekly subcutaneous injections of 2 mg/kg DOX and fed either standard diet or diet supplemented with a-tocopherol succinate. Treatment with a cumulative dose of 14 mg/kg DOX caused mitochondrial cardiomyopathy as evidenced by histology, accumulation of oxidized cardiac proteins, and a significant decrease in mitochondrial calcium loading capacity. Maintaining rats on the a-tocopherol supplemented diet resulted in a significant (two-to fourfold) enrichment of cardiac mitochondrial membranes with a-tocopherol and diminished the content of oxidized cardiac proteins associated with DOX treatment. However, dietary a-tocopherol succinate failed to protect against mitochondrial dysfunction and cardiac histopathology. From this we conclude that although dietary vitamin E supplementation enriches cardiac mitochondrial membranes with a-tocopherol, either (1) this tocopherol enrichment is not sufficient to protect cardiac mitochondrial membranes from DOX toxicity or (2) oxidative stress alone is not responsible for the persistent mitochondrial cardiomyopathy caused by long-term DOX therapy

Quantum Reed-Solomon Codes

After a brief introduction to both quantum computation and quantum error correction, we show how to construct quantum error-correcting codes based on classical BCH codes. With these codes, decoding can exploit additional information about the position of errors. This error model - the quantum erasure channel - is discussed. Finally, parameters of quantum BCH codes are provided.Comment: Summary only (2 pages), for the full version see: Proceedings Applied Algebra, Algebraic Algorithms and Error-Correcting Codes (AAECC-13), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1719, Springer, 199

Prolonged refractory status epilepticus following acute traumatic brain injury: a case report of excellent neurological recovery

INTRODUCTION: Refractory status epilepticus (RSE) secondary to traumatic brain injury (TBI) may be under-recognized and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. METHODS: This case report describes a 20 year old previously healthy woman who suffered a severe TBI as a result of a motor vehicle collision and subsequently developed RSE. Pharmacological coma, physiological support and continuous electroencephalography (cEEG) were undertaken. RESULTS: Following 25 days of pharmacological coma, electrographic and clinical seizures subsided and the patient has made an excellent cognitive recovery. CONCLUSION: With early identification, aggressive physiological support, appropriate monitoring, including cEEG, and an adequate length of treatment, young trauma patients with no previous seizure history and limited structural damage to the brain can have excellent neurological recovery from prolonged RSE

Trial-unique, delayed nonmatching-to-location (TUNL) touchscreen testing for mice: sensitivity to dorsal hippocampal dysfunction.

RATIONALE: The hippocampus is implicated in many of the cognitive impairments observed in conditions such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and schizophrenia (SCZ). Often, mice are the species of choice for models of these diseases and the study of the relationship between brain and behaviour more generally. Thus, automated and efficient hippocampal-sensitive cognitive tests for the mouse are important for developing therapeutic targets for these diseases, and understanding brain-behaviour relationships. One promising option is to adapt the touchscreen-based trial-unique nonmatching-to-location (TUNL) task that has been shown to be sensitive to hippocampal dysfunction in the rat. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to adapt the TUNL task for use in mice and to test for hippocampus-dependency of the task. METHODS: TUNL training protocols were altered such that C57BL/6 mice were able to acquire the task. Following acquisition, dysfunction of the dorsal hippocampus (dHp) was induced using a fibre-sparing excitotoxin, and the effects of manipulation of several task parameters were examined. RESULTS: Mice could acquire the TUNL task using training optimised for the mouse (experiments 1). TUNL was found to be sensitive to dHp dysfunction in the mouse (experiments 2, 3 and 4). In addition, we observed that performance of dHp dysfunction group was somewhat consistently lower when sample locations were presented in the centre of the screen. CONCLUSIONS: This study opens up the possibility of testing both mouse and rat models on this flexible and hippocampus-sensitive touchscreen task.CHK received funding from the Korean Health Technology R&D Project, Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (HI11C1183). CJH, LMS and TJB were funded by Medical Research Council/Wellcome Trust grant 089703/Z/09/Z. CR, LMS and TJB were funded by Alzheimer’s Research UK [ART/ESG2010/1]. ACM, MHE, CAO, LMS and TJB also received funding from the Innovative Medicine Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement no 115008 of which resources are composed of EFPIA in-kind contribution and financial contribution from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-015-4017-

Mesoscopic superpositions of vibronic collective states of N trapped ions

We propose a scalable procedure to generate entangled superpositions of motional coherent states and electronic states in N trapped ions. Beyond their fundamental importance, these states may be of interest for quantum information processing and may be used in experimental studies of decoherence.Comment: Final version, as published in Physical Review Letters. See also further developments and applications in quant-ph/020207

Two-Bit Gates are Universal for Quantum Computation

A proof is given, which relies on the commutator algebra of the unitary Lie groups, that quantum gates operating on just two bits at a time are sufficient to construct a general quantum circuit. The best previous result had shown the universality of three-bit gates, by analogy to the universality of the Toffoli three-bit gate of classical reversible computing. Two-bit quantum gates may be implemented by magnetic resonance operations applied to a pair of electronic or nuclear spins. A ``gearbox quantum computer'' proposed here, based on the principles of atomic force microscopy, would permit the operation of such two-bit gates in a physical system with very long phase breaking (i.e., quantum phase coherence) times. Simpler versions of the gearbox computer could be used to do experiments on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen states and related entangled quantum states.Comment: 21 pages, REVTeX 3.0, two .ps figures available from author upon reques

Entropy and Quantum Kolmogorov Complexity: A Quantum Brudno's Theorem

In classical information theory, entropy rate and Kolmogorov complexity per symbol are related by a theorem of Brudno. In this paper, we prove a quantum version of this theorem, connecting the von Neumann entropy rate and two notions of quantum Kolmogorov complexity, both based on the shortest qubit descriptions of qubit strings that, run by a universal quantum Turing machine, reproduce them as outputs.Comment: 26 pages, no figures. Reference to publication added: published in the Communications in Mathematical Physics (http://www.springerlink.com/content/1432-0916/

The Road to Quantum Computational Supremacy

We present an idiosyncratic view of the race for quantum computational supremacy. Google's approach and IBM challenge are examined. An unexpected side-effect of the race is the significant progress in designing fast classical algorithms. Quantum supremacy, if achieved, won't make classical computing obsolete.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur

The Relation Between the Surface Brightness and the Diameter for Galactic Supernova Remnants

In this work, we have constructed a relation between the surface brightness ($\Sigma$) and diameter (D) of Galactic C- and S-type supernova remnants (SNRs). In order to calibrate the $\Sigma$-D dependence, we have carefully examined some intrinsic (e.g. explosion energy) and extrinsic (e.g. density of the ambient medium) properties of the remnants and, taking into account also the distance values given in the literature, we have adopted distances for some of the SNRs which have relatively more reliable distance values. These calibrator SNRs are all C- and S-type SNRs, i.e. F-type SNRs (and S-type SNR Cas A which has an exceptionally high surface brightness) are excluded. The Sigma-D relation has 2 slopes with a turning point at D=36.5 pc: $\Sigma$(at 1 GHz)=8.4$^{+19.5}_{-6.3}$$\times10^{-12}$ D$^{{-5.99}^{+0.38}_{-0.33}}$ Wm$^{-2}$Hz$^{-1}$ster$^{-1}$ (for $\Sigma$$\le3.7\times10^{-21}$ Wm$^{-2}$Hz$^{-1}$ster$^{-1}$ and D$\ge$36.5 pc) and $\Sigma$(at 1 GHz)=2.7$^{+2.1}_{-1.4}$$\times$ 10$^{-17}$ D$^{{-2.47}^{+0.20}_{-0.16}}$ Wm$^{-2}$Hz$^{-1}$ster$^{-1}$ (for $\Sigma$$>3.7\times10^{-21}$ Wm$^{-2}$Hz$^{-1}$ster$^{-1}$ and D$<$36.5 pc). We discussed the theoretical basis for the $\Sigma$-D dependence and particularly the reasons for the change in slope of the relation were stated. Added to this, we have shown the dependence between the radio luminosity and the diameter which seems to have a slope close to zero up to about D=36.5 pc. We have also adopted distance and diameter values for all of the observed Galactic SNRs by examining all the available distance values presented in the literature together with the distances found from our $\Sigma$-D relation.Comment: 45 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomical and Astrophysical Transaction