A STEREOLOGICAL STUDY OF HIPPOCAMPUS IN EXPERIMENTAL EPILETIC RAT MODEL TREATED WITH ACORUS CALAMUS AND BETA-ASARONE

Objective: Epilepsy is the fourth most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder that affects about 1–2% of people round the world. Epilepsy cannot be cured even with modern medication, but the medications can control the seizures. Even this cannot be achieved in nearly 30% of epileptic population. At this point, we felt the need of some natural supplements to protect the nervous system against neurodegeneration and so created an equivalent model of epilepsy with kainic acid lesion and studied the novel role of Acorus calamus in protecting the neurons.Methods: For this study, we divided the animals into four groups, based on the drugs used. We also produced a stereotaxic model of epilepsy by inducing kainic acid into the right hippocampus of all the animals except CO (control) group. Then, we conducted a stereological study both on the 2nd and 7th day after surgery, to rule out the neuroprotective and neuroregenerative ability of the drugs employed.Results: The results were amazing. Stereological study on the 2nd day revealed a very large lesion on the hippocampus of lesion control (LC) animals, and the lesion was very much smaller in both drug group animals. On the 7th day also the LC animals showed a large lesion, but the lesion on the drug group animals diminished due to a number of new cells, probably of neurons grown in the place of lesion.Conclusion: The results proved the neuroprotective and regenerative ability of both drugs, but as a fact, beta-asarone had an upper hand in this study

Spin-parity assignments to levels in the very-neutron-rich nucleus ¹¹³Rh

553-559Spins and parities have been assigned to the low-lying energy levels in the very neutron-rich Z=45 nucleus 113Rh identified in beta decay of the exotic fission fragment 113Ru. The assignments are based on the experimental intensities and log ft values, gamma energies, intensities, branchings and multi-polarities deduced from 113Ru decay, taken together with the trends for the analogous levels and their comparative feedings and decays in the lighter n-rich Rh isotopes with A=105-111, and the supporting model considerations. No abrupt pattern changes are noticed for this N=68 nucleus lying just beyond the N=66 mid shell point. Whereas the low-lying positive parity level energies show very little variation or a slow decreasing trend, the negative parity level energies are seen to rise sharply with the addition of successive neutron pairs. The intruder band, having reached minimum energy in the N=64 isotope109Rh, appears to have a parabolic increase on either side

Low-lying intrinsic structures in

Low-lying two-quasiparticle bandhead energies for the Z = 99 odd-odd nucleus 254Es are evaluated using a simple phenomenological model with the inclusion of the residual p-n interaction. Configurations of the intrinsic levels directly fed in 254Es from the parent 258Md are discussed in the light of this model. Our analysis predicts the occurrence of ten K≤5 bandheads in 254Es with excitation energies E x≤300keV. Structures of these as yet unidentified low-lying intrinsic levels and their expected locations are discussed in the light of available experimental information

AMC 12 atomic mass compilation data extrapolated for atomic masses of nuclei far from the valley of stability

The experimental mass data from the Atomic Mass Compilation – 2012 (AMC12) has been analyzed for two-neutron separation energies ([Formula: see text] ), two-proton separation energies ([Formula: see text] ), double-beta decay energies ([Formula: see text] ), and four-beta decay energies ([Formula: see text] ) and plotted against neutron number and mass number, respectively. A new weighted slope method of extrapolation, tested for known and new mass measurements, has been used to obtain the extrapolated mass values with better precision for more than 1100 nuclei far from the valley of stability, out of which more than 100 are being reported for the first time. A comparison has been made with five of the popular mass models with reference to experimental extrapolated masses from the present work and the Atomic Mass Evaluation 2016 (AME16). The extrapolated experimental atomic mass data will be very useful for both experimentalists and mass-model theoreticians, as well as in simulations of astrophysical r-processes