A Role for Nanoparticles in Treating Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the main causes of disability in children and young adults, as well as a significant concern for elderly individuals. Depending on the severity, TBI can have a long-term impact on the quality of life for survivors of all ages. The primary brain injury can result in severe disability or fatality, and secondary brain damage can increase the complexities in cellular, inflammatory, neurochemical, and metabolic changes in the brain, which can last decades post-injury. Thus, survival from a TBI is often accompanied by lifelong disabilities. Despite the significant morbidity, mortality, and economic loss, there are still no eective treatment options demonstrating an improved outcome in a large multi-center Phase III trial, which can be partially attributed to poor target engagement of delivered therapeutics. Thus, there is a significant unmet need to develop more eective delivery strategies to overcome the biological barriers that would otherwise inhibit transport of materials into the brain to prevent the secondary long-term damage associated with TBI. The complex pathology of TBI involving the blood-brain barrier (BBB) has limited the development of eective therapeutics and diagnostics. Therefore, it is of great importance to develop novel strategies to target the BBB. The leaky BBB caused by a TBI may provide opportunities for therapeutic delivery via nanoparticles (NP). The focus of this review is to provide a survey of NP-based strategies employed in preclinical models of TBI and to provide insights for improved NP based diagnostic or treatment approaches. Both passive and active delivery of various NPs for TBI are discussed. Finally, potential therapeutic targets where improved NP-mediated delivery could increase target engagement are identified with the overall goal of providing insight into open opportunities for NP researchers to begin research in TBI

Course Portfolio for Assessing Student Learning Surrounding Biological Examples in BSEN244: Thermodynamics of Biological Systems

Thermodynamics is a course required in many engineering disciplines as it covers concepts utilized in many upper level engineering courses. In the Biological Systems Engineering Department at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, this course, in a way, acts as a gateway to the major since this will be one of the first classes where the students must apply and hone their problem-solving skills. This course was developed to allow students in the department to have access to a thermodynamics course that relates to their major area of interest – biological systems. However, many concepts in thermodynamics do not have a good, direct biological correlate that can be used to engage student interest. Therefore, my goal in putting together this portfolio was to assess whether introducing thermodynamics concepts within a biological framework improved student learning. To do this, two separate but related concepts were introduced, one without any biological examples and one with. The students were then quizzed on the concepts at the end of the week they were introduced in class. Overall, the class performed significantly better on the quiz assessing concepts that were introduced within a framework of biological systems. This was most pronounced for students with average performance in the quiz assessing concepts introduced without biological examples, whereas high performing students performed well regardless of how the concepts were introduced. These findings suggest that introducing thermodynamics concepts within the framework of biological systems to Biological Systems Engineering majors improves student learning

Pneumatic preloaded scanning science launch latch system

A relatively simple system using a preloaded pneumatic piston latch with a pyrotechnic valve release was developed. The system was the only candidate that met all the imposed requirements utilizing reliable state-of-art components. The development of the latch system from its first use on Mariner '69 Mars Flyby Spacecraft through its most recent use on the Voyager Spacecraft that will fly to Jupiter and Saturn is reviewed

Nanoparticle Treatment to Counter Reactive Oxygen Species after Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is defined as damage to the brain, resulting from an external mechanical force, such as an impact to the head (Kievit et. al, 2016).There are several examples that could result in a potential TBI; such as falling with contact to the head, car accidents and even physical activities including football, wrestling, and boxing. Because of the several different scenarios that an individual could impact their head, TBI’s have become an all too common aspect of everyday life. TBI is currently the leading cause of death and disability in children and adults under the age of 45, with 1.7 million reported cases annually in the United States alone(Bharadwaj et. al, 2016). The major problem that causes TBIs to be so lethal is the combination of both the initial damage and the secondary corrosive damage on the surrounding brain tissue. The initial damage is capable of being prevented by wearing helmets, seat belts and taking other safety precautions. However, there are currently no treatments that protect the brain from secondary deterioration, spread of the injury beyond primary damage (Kievit et. al, 2016). While some individuals are capable of fully recovering from a TBI without secondary brain damage, unfortunately, roughly 35% of TBI survivors face long-term disabilities (McConeghy et. al, 2012). The lethal progression of this secondary injury is in part caused by the release of reactive oxygen species (ROS) into the surroundings of the normal brain (Kievit et. al, 2016). From this information, it seems that the best way to prevent this secondary spread to the brain would be to reduce or eliminate the spread of ROS. In order to control this release of ROS, there must be a chemical, or biological entity, placed into the brain that reacts with these ROS so that they are incapable of reacting with the healthy portions of the brain. Currently, Dr. Kievit’s lab is developing nanoparticles that can react with these ROS and prevent them from spreading into other areas of the brain

Representational geometry: integrating cognition, computation, and the brain

The cognitive concept of representation plays a key role in theories of brain information processing. However, linking neuronal activity to representational content and cognitive theory remains challenging. Recent studies have characterized the representational geometry of neural population codes by means of representational distance matrices, enabling researchers to compare representations across stages of processing and to test cognitive and computational theories. Representational geometry provides a useful intermediate level of description, capturing both the information represented in a neuronal population code and the format in which it is represented. We review recent insights gained with this approach in perception, memory, cognition, and action. Analyses of representational geometry can compare representations between models and the brain, and promise to explain brain computation as transformation of representational similarity structure

Slow processing speed:a cross-disorder phenomenon with significant clinical value, and in need of further methodological scrutiny

Contains fulltext : 229208.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access

The Strategist and the Web Revisited: An Updated Guide to Internet Resources

Every day of the Information Age makes more material available via the Internet. Yet simply surfing the \u27Net\u27, while perhaps enjoyable as recreation, is ill-suited for rapidly locating valid, salient information. This is particularly true for analysts or military professionals seeking to develop strategy, to research national security issues, or to provide policy advice. With the original edition of this essay in February 1996, James Kievit and Steven Metz began an effort to construct guideposts for strategic thinkers and practitioners to follow when travelling the information superhighway. That such a travel guide is valuable is amply demonstrated by the rapidity with which SSI\u27s stock of the original The Strategist and the Web has been exhausted. Accordingly, the authors have revisited the Web and updated this guide for planners and researchers interested in the practice, problems, and policies of contemporary national security and military strategy. As with the first version of this essay, the authors conclude that the Internet still is not a solution to the analyst\u27s need for relevant, timely information, but they remain convinced that individuals and organizations must prepare themselves for the day when an analyst\u27s collection of Internet \u27bookmarks\u27 will be nearly as valuable as a rolodex of personal contacts is now.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1871/thumbnail.jp

The Strategist and the Web: Guide to Internet Resources

Lieutenant Colonel James Kievit and Dr. Steven Metz begin the effort to construct guideposts for strategists to follow. They provide basic information explaining the most important features of the Internet, and a critical review of more than a hundred of the electronic sites most likely to be of interest to research analysts or military planners. While the authors conclude that the Internet today is not a solution to the analyst\u27s need for relevant, timely information, they argue that individuals and organizations must prepare themselves now for the day in the not-so-distant future when an analyst\u27s collection of Internet \u27bookmarks\u27 will be nearly as valuable as a rolodex of personal contacts is now.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1876/thumbnail.jp