Effects of Mental Practice on Balance in the Elderly

Objective: Mental practice refers to "The symbolic rehearsal of a physical activity in the absence of any gross muscular movements." It has been shown in a remarkable number of studies that the use of mental practice like physical practice can produces significant improvements in motor skills. Thus this therapeutic technique can be used in elderly rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of mental practice on balance in the elderly. Materials & Methods: Thirty healthy old subject over the age of 60 years took part in this study. Subjects solicited from two senior-citizen centers in Tehran and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Balance of subjects was assessed in four stage include baseline, pre-treatment, post-treatment and follow-up. Subjects in experimental group performed mental practice of a motor and balance skill for 3 weeks and control group did not perform any practice in that period. Results: The results of this study indicate significant improvement in the motor skill that mentally performed and also in balance of subjects. Conclusion: Mental Practice that performed on the mental skill not only was mentaly effective but also meaningly cause the improvement of balance in elderly

Mobilization of stem cell with granulocyte-colony stimulating factor promotes recovery after traumatic brain injury in rat

  Abstract   Introduction: This study was designed to investigate the effects of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) administration in rats for 6 weeks after traumatic brain injury (TBI).   Methods: Adult male Wistar rats (n = 30) were injured with controlled cortical impact device and divided into four groups. The treatment groups (n = 10 each) were injected subcutaneously with recombinant human G-CSF. Vehicle group (n=10) received phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and only Brdu intraperitoneally. Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) was used for mitotic labeling. Experimental rats were injected intraperitoneally with BrdU. Rats were killed at 6th week after traumatic brain injury. Neurological functional evaluation of animals was performed before and after injury using neurological severity scores (NSS). Animals were sacrificed 42 days after TBI and brain sections were stained using Brdu immunohistochemistry.   Results: Statistically significant improvement in functional outcome was observed in treatment groups when compared with control (p<0.01). This benefit was visible 7 days after TBI and persisted until 42 days (end of trial). Histological analysis showed that Brdu cell positive was more in the lesion boundary zone at treatment animal group than all injected animals.   Discussion: We believe that G-CSF therapeutic protocol reported here represents an attractive strategy for the development of a clinically significant noninvasive traumatic brain injury therapy

Intravenous Injection of Human Umbilical Cord Matrix Stem Cell (Wharton Jelly Stem Cell) Provides Functional Recovery in a Rat Model of Traumatic Brain Injury

Objective: This study was designed to examine the effects of human umbilical cord matrixstem cell (hUCMSC) administration in rats for 6 weeks after traumatic brain injury (TBI).Materials and Methods: Adult male Wistar rats (n = 30) were injured with controlled corticalimpact device and divided into three groups. The treatment group (n = 10) was injectedwith 2 × 106 hUCMSC intravenously, the vehicle group (n=10) received phosphate bufferedsaline (PBS) whereas the control group (n = 10) receive nothing. All injections wereperformed one day after injury into the tail veins of the rats. All cells were labelled withBrdu before injection. Evaluation of the neurological function of the rats was performedbefore and after injury using Neurological Severity Scores (NSS). The rats were sacrificed6 weeks after TBI and brain sections were stained using Brdu immunohistochemistry.Results: Statistically significant improvement in functional outcome was observed in thetreatment group compared with the control group (p < 0.01). This benefit was visible 1 weekafter TBI and persisted for six weeks (end of trial). Histological analysis showed that hUCMSCwere present in the lesion boundary zone at 6 weeks in all cell injected animals.Conclusion: Rats injected with hUCMSC after TBI survive for at least six weeks and showfunctional improvemnt