Effects of oxcarbazepine on cognitive function in children and adolescents with partial seizures

The authors investigated the effect of oxcarbazepine on cognitive function in children and adolescents (6 to younger than 17 years of age) with newly diagnosed partial seizures in an open-label comparison with standard antiepileptic drug therapy (carbamazepine and valproate). No differences in cognitive tests were observed between oxcarbazepine and carbamazepine/valproate over a 6-month treatment period

How do animals survive extreme temperature amplitudes? The role of Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents

Recent findings have reported the reason why some living beings are able to withstand the huge thermal amplitudes between winter and summer in their natural habitats. They are able to produce metabolites decreasing deeply the crystallization temperature of water, avoiding cell disrupture due to the presence of ice crystals and overcoming osmotic effects. In vitro, the possibility to cool living cells and tissues to cryogenic temperatures in the absence of ice can be achieved through a vitrification process. Vitrification has been suggested as an alternative approach to cryopreservation and could hereafter follow an interesting biomimetic perspective. The metabolites produced by these animals are mostly sugars, organic acids, choline derivatives, or urea. When combined at a particular composition, these compounds form a new liquid phase which has been defined as Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NADES). In this review, we relate the findings of different areas of knowledge from evolutive biology, cryobiology, and thermodynamics and give a perspective to the potential of NADES in the development of new cryoprotective agents.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of FCT through the project Des.zyme - Biocatalytic separation of enantiomers using Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (PTDC/ BBB-EBB/1676/2014). The funding received from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement numbers REGPOT-CT2012-316331- POLARIS, as well as from European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the project “Novel smart and biomimetic materials for innovative regenerative medicine approaches” RL1- ABMR-NORTE-01-0124-FEDER-000016), cofinanced by North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (ON.2, O Novo Norte), under the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), are also appreciatively acknowledged.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio