Reshaping cortical activity with subthalamic stimulation in Parkinson's disease during finger tapping and gait mapped by near infrared spectroscopy

Exploration of motor cortex activity is essential to understanding the pathophysiology in Parkinson's Disease (PD), but only simple motor tasks can be investigated using a fMRI or PET. We aim to investigate the cortical activity of PD patients during a complex motor task (gait) to verify the impact of deep brain stimulation in the subthalamic nucleus (DBS-STN) by using Near-Infrared-Spectroscopy (NIRS). NIRS is a neuroimaging method of brain cortical activity using low-energy optical radiation to detect local changes in (de)oxyhemoglobin concentration. We used a multichannel portable NIRS during finger tapping (FT) and gait. To determine the signal activity, our methodology consisted of a pre-processing phase for the raw signal, followed by statistical analysis based on a general linear model. Processed recordings from 9 patients were statistically compared between the on and off states of DBS-STN. DBS-STN led to an increased activity in the contralateral motor cortex areas during FT. During gait, we observed a concentration of activity towards the cortex central area in the "stimulation-on" state. Our study shows how NIRS can be used to detect functional changes in the cortex of patients with PD with DBS-STN and indicates its future use for applications unsuited for PET and a fMRI

Лазерная бронхоскопическая хирургия трахеи и бронхов

Abilities of bronchiscopic laser surgery were investigated in 170 patients with various pathological formations of trachea and bronchi. The saser endoscopic surgery was characterized as an effective method for radical and palliative treatments of benign and malignant tumors, scar stenosis of trahcea and bronchi, broncholytias, and some others. The increase of the laser intervention efficiency was assisted by the simultaneous usage of some additional methods such as electroexcision of tumors, endoprosthesis, and many others.Возможности бронхоскопической лазерной хирургии были изучены у 170 больных с различными патологическими образованиями трахеи и бронхов. Лазерная эндохирургия зарекомендовала себя эффективным методом радикального и паллиативного лечения доброкачественных и злокачественных опухолей, рубцовых стенозов трахеи и бронхов, бронхолитиаза и некоторых других заболеваний. Повышению эффективности лазерных оперативных вмешательств способствовало одновременное применение некоторых дополнительных методов — электроэксцизии опухолей, эндопротезирования и других

Coding variants in NOD-like receptors: An association study on risk and survival of colorectal cancer

Nod-like receptors (NLRs) are important innate pattern recognition receptors and regulators of inflammation or play a role during development. We systematically analysed 41 non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 21 NLR genes in a Czech discovery cohort of sporadic colorectal cancer (CRC) (1237 cases, 787 controls) for their association with CRC risk and survival. Five SNPs were found to be associated with CRC risk and eight with survival at 5% significance level. In a replication analysis using data of two large genome-wide association studies (GWASs) from Germany (DACHS: 1798 cases and 1810 controls) and Scotland (2210 cases and 9350 controls) the associations found in the Czech discovery set were not confirmed. However, expression analysis in human gut-related tissues and immune cells revealed that the NLRs associated with CRC risk or survival in the discovery set were expressed in primary human colon or rectum cells, CRC tissue and/or cell lines, providing preliminary evidence for a potential involvement of NLRs in general in CRC development and/or progression. Most interesting was the finding that the enigmatic development-related NLRP5 (also known as MATER) was not expressed in normal colon tissue but in colon cancer tissue and cell lines. Future studies may show whether regulatory variants instead of coding variants might affect the expression of NLRs and contribute to CRC risk and survival